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\t) • tt^e • Blizzard 



EING AN AUTHENTIC AND COMPREHENSIVE RECITAL 

OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND CONDITIONS 

WHICH SURROUNDED THE METROPOLIS 

IN THE GREAT STORM OF 

MARCH 12, i888. 



COMPILED BY 

N. A. JENNINGS and McC. LINGAN, 

Of the New York Evening Sim. 






ROGERS & SHERWOOD, 

21 AND 23 BaRCI^AYSTREEX, 

NEW York. 



\ 



Copyright, 1888, 
By ROGERS & SHERWOOD. 






PREFACE 



The following reports of Life in New York during the great 
Blizzard have been carefully selected from the columns of the 
New York Sun, and embody the most faithful and correct pen 
portraitures of the great city's three day snow siege that have 
been presented through the medium of the press. 

To the many who were unable to obtain accounts of the 
storm during its reign, the following pages which deal with all 
the happenings by land and sea in and around New York, will 
doubtless prove both edifying and entertaining. The articles 
appeared severally in the New York Sun, and to that paper 
is the just credit given by 

The Compilers. 



The First Day of the Blizzard. 



At little after 12 o'clock ou Sunday nieht, or 
Monday morning, the severe rain that had been 
pelting down since the moment of the opening 
of the church doors suddenly changed to a 
sleet storm that plated the sidewalks with ice. 
Then began the great storm that is to become 
for years a household word, a symbol of the 
worst of weathers and the limit of nature's 
possibilities under normal conditions. 

At a quarter past 6 o'clock, when the ex- 
tremely modified sunlight forced its way to 
earth, the scene in the two great cities that the 
bridge unites was remarkable beyond any win- 
ter sight remembered by the people. The 
streets were blocked with snowdrifts. The car 
tracks were hid, horse cars were not in the 
range of possibilities, a wind of wild velocity 
howled between the rows of houses, the air 
was burdened with soft, wet, clinging snow, 
only here and there was a wagon to be seen, 
only here and there a feebly moving man. 

The wind howled, whistled, banged, roared, 
and moaned as It rushed alone. It fell upon 
the house sides in fearful gusts, it strained 
great plate glass windows, rocked the frame 
houses, pressed against doors so that it was 
almost dangerous to open them. It was a visi- 
ble, substantial wind, so freighted was it with 
snow. It came in whirls, it descended in lay- 
ers, it shot along in great blocks, it rose and 
fell and corkscrewed and zigzagged and played 
merry havoc with everything it could swing or 
batter or bang or carry away. 

It was Monday morning, when a day of rest 
from shopping had depleted the larders in 
every house, and yet there were no milk carts, 
no butcher wagons, no basket-laden grocer 
boys, no bakers' carriers. In great districts no 
attempt was made to deliver the morning 
papers. The cities were paralyzed. 

Few of the women who work for their living 
could get to their work places. Never, perhaps, 
in the history of petticoats was the imbecil- 
ity of their designer better illustrated. "To 
get here I had to take my skirts up and 
clamber through the snowdrifts," said a wash- 
woman when she came to the house of the re- 
porter who writes this. She was the only mes- 
senger from the world at large that reached 
thatfhouse up to half past 10 o'clock. "With my 
dress down I could not move half a block," 
It was so with thousands of women ; the thou- 
sand few who did not turn back when they 
had started out. Thus women were seen to 
cross In front of The Sun office and at many of 
the busiest corners up town. But all the 
women In the streets ass<*mbled together 
would have made a small showing. They are 
said to be much averse to staying in, but they 
8ta]f^ in as a rule yesterday. 



At half past 10 o'clock not a dozen stores on 
Fulton street, in this city, had opened for 
business.- Men were making wild efforts to 
clean the walks, only to see each shovelful of 
snow blown back upon them and piled against 
the doors again. 

" Have the girls come ?" an employer asked 
of his porter, 

" Girls!" said the porter. "I have not seen a 
woman blow through Fulton street since I've 
been here." 

The street was dead. Here and there a truck 
moved laboriously, but more trucks were stuck 
in drifts and the horses were being led away 
from them. The elevated roads were running 
trains semi-occasionally at this early hour, 
and mainly over only certain parts of their 
routes. Only one East Elver ferry, the Fulton, 
was making its trips. The Brooklyn elevated 
was chook-a-block with an engine broken 
down and a solid line of trains from the ferry 
to Greene avenue. The big bridge was next to 
useless. A dense mass of men were packed in 
the Brooklyn depot, and a shuttle train, run 
by a dummy, was pecking dainty mouthfuls 
out of the great multitude, running now and 
then. The cable whirred along, but it never 
would have done to hitch cars to it. That would 
simply have been to have the grips torn out of 
the car bottoms. The attendants would not 
allow any man to attempt to walk over the 
aerial footway. 

The Fulton ferryboats picked their way 
across the turbulent river as blind men grope 
without their sticks. The water was black and 
boisterous, the air above It white and roaring. 
When a boat would hold not another passenger 
it crawled out into the storm. The Staten 
Island boats ran In a desperate effort to mind 
their time table. Nothing was ever known to 
make any difference to a Staten Island boat 
except when the Westfleld burst her boiler in 
1871, The Jersey ferries, at least those that 
wharf down town, ran as best they could, and 
they brought unof^clal rumors that not a rail- 
road wheel was turning in New Jersey. 

You could not see New Jersey from New 
York ; you could not see Brooklyn or even Gov- 
ernor's Island. But the storm was plain to 
see, to hear, to feel, and to fight. 

What a storm I What a day! What a crip- 
pling of industry ! Policemen who did not hide 
In doorways plodded along the middle of the 
streets. In Brooklyn a chimney took fire 
somewhere up at the head of Broadway, and a 
hose carriage was seen going to it with four 
horses at the rate of two miles an hour. At 
Broadway the firemen must have thought all 
the horse cars in town were huddled there in a 
heap, for they were blockaded there. 
^Nassau .street from the IHhune |)uilding to 



the southern end of the Vanderbilt building 
and the Kelly building opposite had become a 
funnel, a wind-condensing canon. The gale 
there swept the flagging clear and took men off 
their feet so irresistibly that they were seen 
falling and lying down everywhere, and there- 
while the air seemed litteredwith flying hats and 
pierced with the yells of the merry idlers who 
blocked the doorways and looked on at the fun. 

Cabmen at the Astor House were demanding 
five to eight dollars to carry passengers up 
Broadway below Central Park. Cab horses 
were breaking down and tiring out, and their 
drivers were resting them wherever one went. 
Whoever faced the wind had his breath driven 
down his throat, his eyes blinded, his ears 
frozen, and his hands numbed. Whoever went 
with the gale achieved the velocity of a cutter 
As is usual when there is snow in the air, the 
laboring men and the small boys yelled at the 
top of their voices. Never was there heard in 
New York such a chorus of shouts, curses, ap- 
peals, idle screams, and peals of laughter. 

" How on earth did you get here ?" was what 
each man asked every other man who appeared 
in the down-town streets. 

Every man had a moving tale of hair-breadth 
escapes, of blockades and breakdowns, of pugil- 
istic set-tos with the gale, of mirings in fabulous 
drifts, of queer sights, of hampered business 
and snow-ehoked plans gone in the storm. 

As the hours went on and noon drew nigh 
the storm lost none of its severity. Dusk cauie 
and then darkness, and the wonderful visita- 
tion was still in progress. Still the streets were 
banked high with rifts of snow, still the wind 
roared and howled and bellowed and flung it- 
self against tbe city's walls, still the horse cars 
were cut off from their tracks and the pillai-ed 
roads were idle, still the wagons were few, the 
women were obliterated from the outdoor 
scenes, the pelting enow and sleet blinded 
men's eyes, the cold wind numbed man and 
beast, the uproar of wild voices continued. 

The streets were littered with blown-down 
signs, tops of fauey lamps, and all the wreck 
and debris of projections, ornaments, and 
movables. Everywhere horse cars were 
lying on their sides, intrenched in deep snow, 
lying across the tracks, jammed together and 
in every conceivable position. The city's sur- 
face was like a wreck-strewn battle field. 

Locomotion was especially difficult on ac- 
count of human helplessness. Men were con- 
stantly thrown against one another and were 
continually falling on the sidewalks. A woman 
attempting to cross Nassau street was obliged 
to call for help. She said she had lost her 
strength, and her clothing was so entangled 
with her limbs that she could not move. Two 
men helped her to the sidewalk. Up town, 
well-dressed women bogged the drivers of pri- 
vate carriages to let them into the vehicles. 
Their manifest helplessness often got them the 
opportunities to ride. 

So fierce was the wind that sparrows could 
not fly against it. They rested in the windows 
of The Sun building, and started out against 
the air to stand still with wings fluttering 
vainly. If they attempted to fly with the gale 
they were hustled along like stones thrown 
with fearful force. 



So amazing, so unprecedented was the situa- 
tion that at 3 o'clock in the afternoon the only 
vehicles in Printing House square were two 
abandoned horse cars covered with sleet stuck 
horseless in the snow. The only human beings 
to be seen were a fat policeman knee deep in a 
drift and three boys on the sidewalk. 

Clothing, the like of which is seldom seen in 
town, was brought out. Men appeared in quaint 
caps, in enormous thigh boots (some looking 
like theatrical properties), in vast coats of 
cloth, rubber, canvass, fur, oilskin, sou'westers, 
Indian moccasins, trousers legs tied at the 
bottom with twine— everything, anything that 
could keep out the weather was to be found on 
the people in the street. 

The busiest streets were lifeless, the wires 
were down at last— not subwayed, but hang- 
ing in tatters. The houses were coated with 
sleet, the general tone of every scene was 
white, the general motion was whirling, the 
general sound was roaring. 

When dusk came there was no abatement of 
the fury of the blizzard. It howled more and 
more loudly, accentuated by the darkness and 
absence of all distracting sounds. New York 
had at last experienced at least one day with a 
Western blizzard. At last weather had been 
felt the like of which no old inhabitant ven- 
tured to say he had ever seen in this neighbor- 
hood. The city went into its gas-lighted rooms 
and its heated houses, and its parlors and beds 
tired, wet, helpless, and full of amazement. 

'Tis an ill blizzard that blows no one good, 
says the proverb, and in this case the good 
came to the liverymen. Here is how it worked: 
A gentleman living near Central Park went to 
the Fifty-ninth street station of the Third 
avenue elevated. It was packed, and the peo- 
ple said they had been there two hours. He 
went home, was thawed and dried, and made 
ready for another venture. He plodded, be- 
tween ankle-deep and knee-deep, to the Sixth 
avenue road. The same conditions there. He 
turned back and went to a stable. There 
they would take him to the Post Office for 
$10. He would not pay so much, for he 
did not know that at that time there 
were no carriages in most stables, and men 
were paying $8 to go down town from Twenty- 
third street. While this traveller waited he 
learned that a carriage was to be sent down to 
the Produce Exchange to bring a broker back. 
Could he not go in that for $5? No ; but he 
could for $10. He would not pay $10. Would 
he pay $7? No; not a cent more than $5. Well, 
he could go for that. He was a lucky man. 
Others walked or stayed at home. 

Men walked to business from the other side 
of Brooklyn, from Harlem, from Jersey City 
Heights. Those who chose the main avenues 
made their way with reasonable ease, but 
nearly every one had more or less of side street 
experiences, and these they will narrate for 
twenty years, or as long as they may live. 

The morning rush down Broadway was a 
very little one considered as a rush. It was to 
be called that only because it was the time 
when there usually is a rush. A thin stream 
of plodding pedestrians strung along the^drift- 
heaped sidewalks struggled down town, snow 
covered, ice fringed, breathless, and perspiring 



under the close wraps that were necessary to 
shut the fine snow out from necks and wrists. 
They were mostly young men and boys, who 
were continuing the journey interrupted by 
blocked elevated trains or stalled street cars. 
A few elderly men struggled with them in the 
restless, eager mood that comes of the fact 
that promissory notes and little matters of 
that sort stop not for blizzards. 

A few women and girls also faced the storm. 
They were the weakest and least prepared of 
any for the contest. Yet many of them laughed 
gayly as they plunged and slipped along. 
Others proceeded slowly and painfully, and de- 
spite additional pairs of coarse stockings drawn 
over their shoes and the most careful use of 
their meagre wraps they were evidently suffer- 
ing. They attracted attention and excited 
pity, no doubt, but no one could spare the time 
and strength to tui-n this sentiment Into prac- 
tical assistance. So they helped themselves as 
best they could, and floundered through drifts 
and across streets knee-deep with floury snow; 
or with equal effort tried to brace themselves 
against the wind when they struck a clear spot. 
The contest was bitter, and they wer« often 
driven to doorways to gain breath and strength. 

In the roadway the yellow cars were few and 
far between. The reporter saw but three be- 
tween Tenth street and the City Hall. None of 
them was making any progress, though in one 
case six horses were tugging in vain at the 
traces. One with four horses was in much the 
same fix, and the third, with a single team, 
stood motionless, no effort or strength being 
left in horses or driver. 

The vehicles that were getting along were 
very few. Cabs, coupes, and carriages were 
the liveliest, while the big double wagons of 
the express companies seemed to be making 
pretty good weather of it. Trucks were far 
from plenty, but their drivers were, as usual, in 
good spirits and good tongue. One of them ad- 
vised the three drivers of the six-horse car 
team to " swim out when you are over your 
head." As he disappeared in the snow-clouded 
air a burst of profanity followed him that 
ought to have melted the snow which clogged 
the wheels of the car. 

BEOADWAY STOKES SHUT AND SNOWED UNDEK. 

The persistency with which these men and 
women struggled toward the usual scene of 
their daily labors was usually but poorly re- 
warded. The business done anywhere was in- 
considerable, and in many cases the doors were 
closed altogether and half hidden in drifted 
snow. As late as 10 o'clock in the down-town 
streets and avenues clerks and shop girls stood 
shivering in doorways and hallways, sheltering 
themselves as well as they could, and anxiously 
waiting for the arrival of the holder of the keys. 
Only about half, as a rule, of the force in all 
the business houses, banks, and offices was on 
hand by noon, and this number was not added 
to during the slow-moving hours of the after- 
noon up to the time that an early closing was 
generally determined on to give everybody a 
chance to try and get home. 

In the Equitable Insurance ofiQce 93 out of 
205 clerks made their appearance, and no offi- 
cer of higher rank than the assistant cashier 
was on hand. The offices throughout this and 
the other big buildings were only half of them 



opened, and these but half tenanted. Business 
was practically at a standstill, and one or two 
elevators were enough in the biggest build- 
ings to take care of all the traffic. Those who 
had persevered in their efforts to get to busi- 
ness despite the elevated, surface, bridge, and 
ferry blockades had don© so in the hope that 
things would be cleared up during the day, and 
the home trip would be easy. As the day wore 
on and this hope faded away they began to re- 
gret their success of the morning, and to wish 
that they had not left home. The scenes of 
the morning were the suggestion of yet more 
trouble to come. 

Men who had paid $5 or $10 for a short car- 
riage ride on the way down, or anything from 
25 cents to $1 for the privilege of using a ladder 
to climb down from an elevated train stalled be- 
tween stations, were quite naturally prone to 
wonder how much it was going to cost them to 
get home, as the conditions had grown worse 
instead of better. The only way they could 
withdraw their minds from these dreary fore- 
bodings was to discuss the peculiar expe- 
riences of the city's blizzard day. When snugly 
ensconced for the time being, it added to their 
feeling of comfort to relate the incidents they 
had observed of the details of the hard lot of 
others. The policemen, the letter carriers, the 
newsmen, and the milkmen were the principal 
objects of this kind of attention 

The milkmen had all succeeded in getting 
their supplies from the railroad depots before 
the storm had developed to its full intensity. 
But in the work of distribution they were 
caught badly, in many cases it was nearly 
noon before, with their horses jaded and them- 
selves half frozen, they stopped the service, 
with most of their customers supplied. With 
the newsdealers it was much the same. They 
got their usual stores of papers in due season, 
but when it came to serving routes the condi- 
tions were such that few attempted it. Cus- 
tomers who came after their papers were very 
welcome to them, but the job of leaving them 
from door to door was too much for the deal- 
ers. They preferred to be " stuck" with what- 
ever unsold papers their luck might deter- 
mine. The letter carriers made a great strug- 
gle to get out the two early deliveries of Sunday 
stuff, but so many business places were closed, 
and the work was so difficult, that not much 
headway was made. 

The policemen were scarcely to be seen. The 
snow was so thick and their storm-coated uni- 
forms looked so much like everybody else's 
clothes that it took sharp eyes to tell where 
they were. But they were on hand when any- 
thing happened, and that was all the time, for 
events crowded each other's heels all day long. 
Falling awnings, signs, and telegraph wires 
were constantly endangering lives, and not a 
few narrow escapes were recorded. At 32 
Vesev street a section of the iron awning in 
front of the Metropolitan Hardware Company's 
store fell under its weight of snow. A postman 
had just passed under it, and just missed be- 
ing caught in the wreck. In Courtlandt street, 
Capt. Slevin stopped a lady who was rushing 
blindly along. A falling sign that the Captain's 
quick eye had espied fell just in front of her. 
It smashed a big plate-glass window. 

Spruce and Nassau streets was one of th© 



breeziest corners down town. Park row and 
Beekman street was an equally exposed place. 
Men and women alike were unable to retain 
their feet there They were blown with wildly 
fluttering garments and most undignified haste 
across the street and landed in the opposite 
gutter every which way. The Western Union 
corner was in some mysterious manner made 
equally dlfiaoult to travel upon,. The wind had 
swept it clear of snow and on its glare Ice sur- 
tare at times no progress could be made ex- 
cept on all fours. Many a man rounded it in 
this fashion careless of the fate of the hat or 
unabrella that had gone in the first gust. 

Washington Market's early birds of business 
men were on hand and ready for customers 
before the storm had entirely blocked things. 
But the blockade was around ahead of the 
buyers, and they were so few that there was 
really no use for the stand keepers to have 
opened at all. It is positively stated by some 
of the marketmen that there was not an ave- 
rage of two customers to each stand in all the 
people that had visited the place up to noon. 
By that time nearly every one had given up 
the expectation of doing any business, and 
closed up. 

The public schools were all onened on time, 
the resident janitors making this a certainty; 
but the teachers and scholars reported in such 
meagre numbers that scarcely one of them re- 
mained open for an entire session. The slim 
attendance and the general disorganization of 
the day made the exercises necessarily brief 
and unimnortant. Some of the children nar- 
rowly escaped getting lost on their way home. 
No schools were open in the afternoon at all, 

A messenger boy, whose errand set his reluc- 
tant face against the full fury of the storm, said 
sadly to a companion, " I wonder what a day 
like this is made for, any how." He had just 
floundered through a drift three feet high on 
the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Church. It 
was one of the most peculiar snow formations 
in the city. Between it and the iron railing of 
the church yard a space two feet wide was left 
comparatively free from snow. There is no 
better way of showing how completely 
businefs and traffic were at a stand- 
still than to say that this space was am- 
ple here, where a twenty-foot sidewalk is 
ordinarily all too narrow. Other big and dan- 
gerous drifts were on the Park row side of the 
Post Office. Two men were actually pulled out 
of it unable to help themselves. One of them, 
who is supposed to be Herman Oelke of 1 Can- 
non street, was so thoroughly overcome by ex- 
posure that Hudnut's brandy did not revive 
him, and he was taken to the Chambers Street 
Hospital in a comatose condition. On West 
street the drifts were very deep and the wind 
that swept over the river was piercing and 
strong. Women here had frequently to call 
upon utter strangers for assistance to get 
along. 

The blizzard rigs of the down-towners wera 
diversified and curious. Oilers in full suits, 
from sou' westers to rubber boots were seen, 
and all sorts of moccasins and waterproof foot 
gear were common. Edward S. Innett, one of 
the Governors of the New York Athletic Club, 
was one of the best fixed men about. With 
perfect protection he had provided for a fair 
degree of activity in getting about. Over a 
stout pair of walking shoes he had drawn a 
pair of bicycle stockings that reached outside 
his treusers above his knees. Over the stock- 
ings were ordinary light rubbers. His overcoat 
was short and he wore a light silk handkerchief 
about his neck to keep the snow out. 
A thin skull cap under a soft felt 
hat comnleted his costume and made 
his comfort secure. Some English tourists 
were his only rivals as to completeness of 
preparation for the arctic weather, but the 
homely, though excellent, device of h«avy 
woollen sock, overshoes and trousers bottogia 



was frequently seen. Porters and others wno 
believed in this, but who were frugal-minded, 
ued bandages or bagging around their feet. 
The practice of tying the trousers about the 
ankles to prevent the fine snow from getting 
over the tops of gaiters and low shoes was very 
general. A large proportion of New Yorkers 
never wear any heavier foot gear than a calfskin 
Shoe or gaiter. These peonle were in a fine fix 
yesterday, despite the strings thus brought to 
their aid, Theyfstarted out blithely in the 
morning in the same spirit that the scoffers 
felt when they told Old Noah tnat it wasn't go- 
ing to be much of a shower. They got back, 
if they got back at all. with frosted 
toes, wet feet, and a stock of the seeds of pneu- 
monia, rheumatism, and other ills suflicient 
for an army. The people unprepared for such 
an experience as yesterday, and yet sufficient- 
ly unwise to venture out and toy with the bliz- 
zard, were legion, and the doctors and the un- 
dertakers will be the beneficiaries. P. C. Ben- 
jamin of the Merchants' National Bank of Wall 
street, who walked down from the Ninth ward 
and arrived on time, without any elaborate 
preparations for the experience, is not one of 
these. He declared to congratulating friends 
that his feet were not even wet. 

The mail service of the city succumbed to the 
storm early in the day. The employees came 
to their costs pretty promptly, but the carriers 
went out almost empty handed, as the railway 
mail service was about paralyzed. Superin- 
tendent 'Jackson of the railway mail service 
said that all his means of obtaining informa- 
tion were cut ofi". What little mail was brought 
in by the collectors and from the sub-stations 
during the morning was despatched from the 
general office. 

At 1 o'clock he telegraphed to all the railway 
termini for advice as to the possibility of get- 
ting the afternoon mails out. 

Postmaster Pearson said that the service was 
about demoralized and that business was 
nearly at a standstill 

There were forty out-of-town mails due be- 
tween 4 o'clock yesterday morning and noon 
Of these only four arrived— the Washington', 
Baltimore, and Philadelphia mail over the 
Pennsylvania Road at 4:05 A. M.. came in the 
office at 6:30. The Boston mail due at 4-10 A 
M. over the New York and New England Road 
was received at 6:30 o'clock/ The Chicago 
mail, due over the New York Central Road at 
6:45, reached the office at five minutes before 1 
o'clock. The Boston and Springfield express 
due at 7:06. arrived at 12:40. At the close of 
the day's business no other mails had been re- 
ceived, and the exact locations of the trains 
unknown. 

"There is not a single wire working between 
New York and the South," .^aid Wire Chief 
Baldwin of the Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany in the afternoon. "As early as 9:30 last 
night we received news to the effect that sixty 
poles, bearing some of our most important 
wires, had fallen in Washington. Shortly after 
that information we lost Baltimore, then we 
lost Washington, and then Philadelphia. We 
have but ten wires to Buffalo, and should have 
fifty, while to Albany we have not quite ten, 
and they are working very badly. Our only 
way to reach Chicago is around by the Lake 
Shore and Western, through Buffalo. Even 
those wires may be down before Monday. 

As far as Harlem and a little beyond where 
our lines run in aerial cables we are all right, 
but past the point where the wires separate we 
have no connection. Never before in the his- 
tory of telegraphy has New York been cut off 
from communication with the rest of the world. 
The European cables, while all rignt in them- 
selves, are useless on account of the destruc- 
tion of the shore lines. Why, we have no con- 
nection with Newark, and New Jersey is further 
away than ever. The damage I cannot even 
approximate. The sleet storm of '81 was the 
most destructive ever known before this, the 
damage running into the thousands. We have 
hundreds of men ready to send out for repairs, 
but cannot send them now, as they could do no 
work. As soon as the storm ceases we shall at 
once begin repairing our lines. The Hudson 
River lines came out better than all. and we 
have connection with Poughkeepsie yet. The 



lines In and around New York will be fixed as 
soon as possible, the vicinity of the damage 
making the work of repairing easier. Should 
the storm abate to-night, we will probably be 
all right by the end of the week." ""'""'' 

The telephone wires, though in short cir- 
cuits and short stretches, did not escape dam- 
age. ^ Even if they had held their own weight 
of snow and resisted the strength of the wind, 
the wreck of the other wires would have 
brought them to grief. There were a great 
many subscribers who could ring up the cen- 
tral offices, yet it seldom happened that any 
two of these wanted each other. So the opera- 
tors spent the day in varying the "Hello! 
hello!" of every day with an equally monoton- 
ous cry of " We can't get them !" 

Superintendent Hibbard of the Metropolitan 
Telephone Company was far from being a 
cheerful man yesterday. " We are in a bad 
fix," said he, " but we cannot tell how qadly off 
we are. We cannot tell how much of our trou- 
ble is due to our own wires being down, and 
how much of it is due to other wires being 
down on ours. In West Eleventh street there 
are several blocks of poles down. They car- 
ried hundred of wires, and many of them are 
ours. Some of the poles crashed through the 
house windows, and the wreck was a lively 
ono. At Eulton and Washington streets, 
Brooklyn, there is another bad mess, and in 
Mott Haven the breaks and tangles ure fright- 
ful. We have a strong force of linemen at 
work. They cannot climb poles or make re- 
pairs in such a storm as this, but they can un- 
tangle the wires, straighten them out, and roll 
them up. That will get them out of the way of 
travel and avoid a great deal or danger." 

By 3 o'clock the generally hopeless character 
of the outlook had entirely depressed those 
who ha.d ventured out to do business, but who 
had been rewarded with very indifferent is re- 
suiiB. Anxious inqtuiries as to whether any 
cars were running on the surface or anywhere 
had been made all day whenever two persons 
met, and the answer was uniformly discourag- 
ing. So the thouahts of home became stronger 
with every moment, and the wonder of how it 
was to be reached became greater. By 4 o'clock 
all considerations of business had been out- 
weighed by these, and nothing was left open 
except the saloons, which had been pretty 
well filled all day, in the absence 
of any business stir. The absence of 
the usual crowd down town was a 
matter of congratulation when the tide set 
homeward. With not a wheel turning on any 
of the regular lines of travel, it was well that 
scarcely five per cent, of tho usual crowds 
were down -town. The majority, under the 
impulse of stern necessity, set themselves 
sturdily to the task of footing it. Broadway 
was the most popular track (although the Bow- 
ery was better^ and a black procession of pe- 
destrians soon marched along its more shel- 
tered western sidewalk. It was laborious work, 
the wind being dead ahead and laden with 
cold, fine snow, as well as keener and harder 

E articles blewn off the roofs. But many of the 
ravest walkers of the morning faltered at the 
thought of the return. It was not alone the 
difference between a fair wind and a head 
wind. ■ The lameness and fatigue resulting 
from the unaccustomed and vigorous work of 
the down trip was the chief trouble. And so it 
happened that hundreds of men who are in a 
position to look lightlylon five or twenty dollars 
when_ compared to comfort and ease," deter- 
mined that there should be no more walking in 
theirs. 

It was then a question between getting hotel 
accommodations or getting a conveyance. And 
it was speedily developed that there was not 
enough of either sort of relief to go round. The 
hackmen wer^ the first to be found in inade- 
quate supply. Such of them as had braved the 
storm, and there were many who would not on 
their own account and on account of their 
horses, were all too few to take the anxious 
up towners home. The work was too slow and 
hard for many trips to be made. The Astor 
House was the best place to see the de- 
mand. All below that were exhausted by 
4 o'clock, or engaged at a price that put 
them beyond temptation, . ana th« improvi- 



V 



dehf meii who Tiaa rested in the belief tTiat 
the railroads would be all right by that time, 
and had not ordered carriages from uptown 
set their faces toward the Astor House to get 
cabs there. The down towners had all got $20 
for a trip up town. A coupe or a coach either 
got this price. In one case it was $10 apiece, 
and in the other it was $5, as four could be car- 
ried. A gentleman with a lady at the corner of 
Courtlandt street and Broadway paid $20 to be 
taken to Fiftieth street. Detective Phil Reilly 
waited three hours for a chance to pay $5 to be 
driven to his home in Bank street. He had 
walked down, and figured that it would be 
more economical to ride than to take the risk 
of walking back. The struggle for carriages 
was very exciting. The starter and the colored 
boss porter in the corridor were subjected to 
all sorts of blandishments by the applicants. 
It finally got to be necessary for a man to 
canvass the crowd until he found three others 
who lived near him. Then, by a compact job, 
with the customary S5 a head, the Jehu could 
be tempted. This price was frequently raised 
t(i $10 apiece for four by impatient ones who 
were afraid of getting left. It looked like big 
money, but it was killing work, and the livery 
men said they did not feel as though they could 
afford to work their horses even at these price's. 
The saleswomen in Macy's store who live too 
far from the store to walk home and depended 
on the cars were invited to stay all night by 
the proprietors. It was a regalar picnic. The 
men were all obliged to shift for themselves, 
and walk or not, as they liked. When they 
were gotten rid of, mattresses were produced, 
and everything necessary to make the girls 
comfortable was provided by the firm. The 
girls thought it great fun to camp out in that 
fashion at first, but before morning doubtless 
many of them wished they were at home. 

It was startling to see how effectually Wall 
street and the Exchanges, the Clearing House, 
the banks, S the Sub-Treasury, the Custom 
House, and the business that centres about 
them were knocked out. All the great Ex- 
changes were practically closed at noon. The 
slim attendance on the Stock Exchange made 
the great Board mournful. Viee-Chairman 
Henriques was around on time to bang the big 
ivory hammer that opens the session in the 
morning, but before him were but twenty-one 
brokers. There are usually 500. The Worm- 
ser brothers, Mr. G. B. Schley, Charley Johnes, 
and Mr. John Kirkner were in the little band, 
and Secretary George W. Ely was up 
stairs in his office thawing out. He 
and others on the Exchange had ploughed 
through the snow drifts from their 
homes up town, some felt flush enough to pay 
from $15 to $35 for cabs tobringthem down, but 
most of them were carried a block or two by 
elevated trains and were shot along by the 
blizzard the rest of the way. Mr. Ely said he 
knew of two brokers who were brought down 
half the way in a butcher cart, but at the 
Morton House the butcher boy driver and his 
horse gave out, and his passengers did the best 
they could after that. 

Commodore Bateman started out from his 
home at the Windsor Hotel in a butcher cart, 
but that butcher boy dropped the doughty 
Commodore after a block or two, and his pas- 
senger struggled back to the Windsor and 
stayed there. An elevated train which started 
from Harlem with Brother Jones of Dow. 
Jones & Co., and a contingent of brokers, was 
practically abandoned at Twenty-third street, 
after taking nearly four hours to get there. 
The brokers flocked to neighboring restau- 
rants and hotels, and the billiard rooms and 
barrooms were thronged from that time out. 

While there were but twenty-one brokers on 
the floor at the opening of the Exchange, there 
was even a smaller number of customers dis- 
tributed through the offices of the 600 and odd 
active members of the Exchange. The thou- 
sands of private wires leading to Chicago. Bos- 



ton, "Philadephia, "Washington, and other specu- 
lative centres had been snapped like cotton 
twin^and while the London cables were work- 
ing, Wall street and all linancial and commer- 
cial folks were absolutely cut off from their out- 
of-town constituents. The streets were strewn 
with broken telegraph wires. Stout cables 
banging from swaying telegraph poles parted, 
and many a struggling pedestrian, in addition 
to all his misery, was tripped by them. 

Shortly before noon, when the attendance on 
the Stock Exchange had increased to a little 
over a hundred, it was announced that one 
wire was working to Chicago. This was a small 
ray to the benighted, but the blizzard-struck 
brokers were too indifferent to brignten much. 
They swapped their experiences with their 
neighbors on the floor, and finally decided to 
give it up and shut up shop for the day. Vice- 
Chairman Henriques got out his ivory hammer 
again and called them around him. This reso- 
lution was then adopted: 

That it is the sense of the members present that all 
dealings, so far as possible, be suspended, and deliveries 
go over until to-morrow, March 13. 

Furthermore, all loans were extended until 
to-day. This is the first time in its history 
that the weathsr has knocked the Stock Ex- 
change out. It was closed for a few days dur- 
ing the Black Friday panic, and since then only 
once on a business day. That was when Vice- 
President Hill died suddenly on the floor of the 
Exchange. 

After tne little throng had decided to quit, it 
was figured up that the transactions for the 
session had been 15,200 shares. 

There were two cabs in front of Delmonico's 
when the brokers abandoned the Exchange, 
One driver got $35 and the other $40 to go to 
the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The other brokers 
got home the best way they could. Many of 
them went to the ofiBces of the elevated road.s. 
at 71 Broadway, to inquire about the chances 
of getting up town. They were greeted with a 
big placard stating that the road was blockea, 
and they were informed that not a single ex- 
ecutive official of the elevated roads had 
turned up at the ofiQces. 

Judge McCue, the new Assistant Treasurer, 
managed to get to the Sub-Treasury, but laalf 
of his clerks were away, and at the Clearing 
House business was clogged until nearly dusk 
by the absence of the clerks. All the banks 
managed to make their clearances, but in sev- 
eral of them certifications were refused because 
of the absence of Presidents, cashiers, and 
tellers. 

Collector Magone, Sur^^eyor Beattie, Deputy 
Collectors Dunn, Guthrie, Nicoll, and McGee, 
Democrats, were at their posts in the Custom 
House. Of the force of 1.500 in the Custom 
House and the Barge Office, 500 were kept 
away by the blizzard. The duties of those ou 
hand, however, were light, as business along 
the docks was practically abandoned. A good 
many of the female Inspectors were on hand. 

The Produce Exchange was closed at 2 
o'clock. When the doors were opened seven 
stanch men wero on hand. At one time there 
were ninety-five brokers on the great floor, but 
all efforts to do business were abandoned long 
'before 2 o'clock struck. Some of the valiant 
ones were Alex. Meakim, Samuel L. Finlay. 
James Christie, Latin Scholar White, and 
Michael Hennessy. The flour men didn't show 
up at all. The freight men were without any 
occupation and sensibly stayed home, and at 
no time were there over a score piping around 
tne grain pit, where hundreds usually cluster 
and howl. The average daily attendance on 
this Exchange is 1,700. 

The Consolidated Stock and Petroleum Ex- 
change, the Cotton, the Maritime, and the Cof- 
fee Exchanges assembled from 20 to 120 per- 
sons, where 300 to 1,200 are usually seen. The 
doors of the Real Estate Exchange were not 
opened. 

A peculiar and interesting feature of the 
brokers who braved the blizzard was their de- 
mand for fresh linen when they got downtown. 
The few haberdashery stores in the neighbor- 
hood of the Exchanges were positively thronged 
with them calling for fresh collars ana shirts 
that had been soaked and wilted by the shoot- 
ing and penetrating snow. Mufflers were of no 
account. ♦The icy particles scorned them.* All 
th«.hatatore8 down town sold cases of Scotch 



caps with peaks in front and rear; Ijut of all, 
the blizzard barons down town the cabmeui 
were the mightest. 



HARLEM TO CITY HALL—TIJUE, 2H. ll]a.< 

A gentleman who lives at 128th street and 
Sixth avenue and who does business near the 
City Hall, made the distance in two hours and 
eleven minutes yesterday morning, probably 
the fastest time on record for the day. This is 
the account as he gave it to a Sun reporter: 

" I left my house on 128th street at 9K A. M. 
and at once discovered that it was snowing. I 
opened my umbrella, and a howling wind swept 
around the corner from Sixth avenue and took 
that umbrella out of my hand and lifted it 
over the roof of a neighboring flat house. 
Next my Derby hat flew off my head and went 
skimming over the snow drifts at the rate of 
about sixty miles an hour. I let it go, return- 
ed to my house, put on an old hunting cap, tied 
up my ears in a woollen muffler, and started 
out again to go to my business. I met a friend 
who yelled to me that the Sixth avenue trains 
were not running, so I steered for Third ave- 
nue. Arriving there I found that the train* 
were not running there either. On Second ave- 
nue there were no trains either. The cable 
road in 125th street had stopped, and business 
men by scores were walking from one L road 
to^ another in the effort to go south. 

"I had to get down town, and I went to a 
livery stable to get a conveyance. There was 
one cutter, one horse, and one driver left. I 
hired all three for $15 and started out. That 
was at 10:20 o'clock. The driver told me that 
the horse was liable to run away if he got ex- 
cited, but he didn't get excited. Well, we 
started down Third avenue on a fast trot, and 
then the fun began. The air was so full of 
little fine needles of snow and the wind tore 
by us at such a rate that that horse staggered 
about like a drunken man. But he was game. 
He put his head down and trotted ahead in the 
teeth of the blast. His mane and tail wero 
masses of ice, and his hide was thickly 
veneerea with it. You know I wear eyeglasses. 
Well, my eyeglasses were covered with ice so 
thick that I had to lick it off every five minutes. 
I couldn't get them clear any other way. 

" We passed Third avenue surface cars all 
the way down. They were all deserted ana 
most of them were off the track. The horsesi 
had all been taken back to the stables. The- 
brewers' wagons were out, though, out in force, 
and each one had from four to ten great 
Normandy horses. Even the great strength of 
these huge draught animals was not enough to 
pull the wagons through some of the snow 
drifts, and the drivers were lashing the poor 
beasts with their whips and cursing them with 
great vigor. The sidewalks were almost de- 
serted as well as I could see through my ice- 
covered glasses. As we kept moving south- 
ward at the great speed of four miles an hour, 
the sleet striking my face made me feel as if it 
was raining carpet tacks. My moustache froze 
solid, my eyebrows did likewise, and little 
icicles formed on my eyelashes and got into 
my eyes. They hurt like hot cinders. 

"At Eighty- fourth street I got out, went into 
a dry goods store, and bought two toboggan 
caps for the driver and myself. We pulled 
them down over our ears and tied mufflers over 
our faces, leaving only the eyes exposed. Then, 
things were more pleasant. The driver was 
61 years old, but he didn't grumble a bit. 

" ■ I'm an old New York tough,' he said. ' I've 
lived here, man and boy, all my life, but I'll be 

if ever I seen the likes o' this ride, an' I 

doan' wanter.' 

'• And still that good horse went staggering 
ahead. We tilted nearly over several times 
and twice we ran into pillars of the elevated 
road, for we couldn't see where we were going- 
half the time. As we passed Seventy-sixth, 
street I saw a great crowd of people ga«ing uj> 
at the scene of the accident on the elevated. 



They were all standing witli their backs to the 
wind. Desortsd wagons stood at the curb all 
the way from Harlem to the City Hall, and we 
met any quantity of men who had unhitched 
their horses and were taking them to sheltei-. 
At Ninth street the fury of the wind redoubled, 
and when we got to Park row the horse was 
forced to stagger a little more slowly. 

"1 arrived opposite The Sun office at 12:31 
o'clock, having made the trip in a little more 
than two hours, and I don't believe anybody 
beat it yesterday. One of the driver's fingers 
was frozen, and the horse was completely ex- 
hausted. No, I am not going home to-night. I 
Lave telegraphed to expect me in May." 



Fulton ferryboats and the boats along the 
iKorth Kiver, which xised up nearly an 
hour on a trip in the dayiight hours, 
*had clear sailing compared with the voy- 
lOges of the Staten Island iferryboats to Bt. 
George and back. Six trips were all that the 
Northfleld, Southfield, and Westfield were able 
to fight through by daylight, and tion© of the 
J boats dared to face a battle with the blizzard 
iafter dark. The wind snapped oSf the iflagstaffs 
of the Northfleld and Westfield the instant 
"they left their piers in the morning. Out in 
midstream, where the wind had full play from 
the northwest, the boats skimmed along lik© a 
lightning express, but the helms were prae» 
tieally useless, because the boats wouldn't 
answer them. The Captains had to trust to 
luck to reach their piers. Capt. Cattermal©, 
who has been twenty years an the service ot thi& 
ferry company, said that m. all his life he never 
knew the wind to blow over the waters with 
euch furious vigor. 

The new ferry line to the foot of Thirty-nJath 
street. South Brooklyn, gave up bu.siaess for 
ihe day after the boats North Brooklyn and 
"West Brooklyn had fought their way across. 
The West Brooklyn tried to battle its way back 
to Brooklyn again after reaching the New York 
Bide, but gave the job up after fighting the gale 
Jor fifty minutes, and anchored with great 
difiQculty at its pier on the New ¥ork side aloua 
*he South JFerry slip. 

"It's ten times worse than a foe." eaid an 
old engineer on a Barclay street ferryboat. 
'°* The danger of collision prevents the running 
cf many boats, and they have to move slowly." 
This was at S3i P. M., as the ferryboat, crowd- 
•ed with passengers who had waited for upward 
of an Ihour in the dark ferry house, moved 
elowly out of the Barclay :street islipi OMy a 
lewnersojiBwentured loutt <of the <cabins. and 
tho.fie whom icoiriosity led to do so were nearly 
•thrown flat upon the deck by the blast. 

Nothing could describe the fury of the wind 
■or the Diaek desolation of the scene out on the 
North River. The snow, driven by the wind, 
made an impenetrable veil, which the sharpest 
eye could not pierce more than 200 feet from 
the boat. Here and there, as the wind lulled 
'or shifted for an instant, another ferryboat 
liuight be seen, looming spectre-like and alarm- 
ingly near at hand. 

The boats were then running on half-hour 
intervals, but later in the afternoon they took 
an hour's headway. In conseauence the crowds 
were larger than usual. They were chiefly 
composed of men and boys. Very few women 
had ventured out. The boys seemed to take a 
wild dohght m the raging elements and kept 
up a continuous uproar of yells, cat calls, and 
Jaughter. T hey were bound to get as much 
fun out of the strange condition of things as 
possible. For the rest a strange, bewildered, 
feelpless look was on nearly every face, and the 



more elderly men talked In subdued tones or 
tried to appear unconcerned and calm. 

The Koosevelt Street, Twenty-third Street, 
and James Slip ferries stopped running before 
the day was over. The passengers were so few 
that it was hardly worth the while to run, and 
the storm on the river so great that lor the 
long runs that those ferries have to make the 
trips were delayed and dangerous. The snow 
deceived the pilots, and the wind blew them 
out of their course. The two Williamsburgh 
ferries that land at Grand street on this side 
made their short cross-river trips without 
much delay, except in the early hours. The 
Grand Street Ferry lost three minutes a trip, 
and the Broadway Ferry two minutes, on the 
average. Few people travelled that way, 
though. The cars did not run in Williams- 
burgh, and scarcely 400 passengers cams 
across from Grand street in the morning. 
The usual number is between 3,000 and 
4.000. Those that came over were dis- 
mayed when they found ther street cars 
on this side had stopped, too, and many of them 
returned home on the nest boat. Those that 
footed it up Grand street wished they hadn't. 
They all returned early in the day, and by 6 
o'clock the ferry was deserted. The gray- 
bearded man who takes the fares for the 
Grand Street Ferry had a lazy time. He says he 
has been thirty-seven years in the company's 
employ and does not remember so small a 
day's business. He does not remember ever 
seeing such a storm, either. 

There were nine funerals booked for Brook- 
lyn eemetaries which expected to cross this 
ferry yesterday. They were all postponed. 
Nearly as many more were going over 
the Broadway ferry, and were postpohed. 
The ferry to Broadway, Williamsburgh, is the 
one specially used by the saleswomen who 
make Grand street stores attractive. Hardly 
100 crossed yesterday, against about 500 which 
the ferry masters say is the usual number. 
Most of those who came went right back as 
soon as they found the cars on this side were 
not running. 

The boats of the Communipaw Ferry ran 
regularly until nightfall, but at intervals of 
hall an Hour, instead of every seven minutes. 
In the afternoon, when it was officially an- 
nounced that the Jersey Central had aban- 
doned all trains, travel fell off, and all the boats 
were withdrawn except the Plainfleld and 
Communipaw. These made regular trips until 
8 P. M. and quit. 

With the exception of an hour from 9 to 
10 A. M. yesterday cars ran on the Brooklyn 
Bridge at intervals. The bridge was enduring 
a severe test, but President Howell said that 
not the slightest vibration was discovered in 
the solid piers. A northwest storm does not 
strike the bridge so fair as a southeast or 
southwest, storm. Delay was caused by snow 
and ice. Regular trains ran yesterday morn- 
ing to 5:10, when the cable was started. For 
two hours the cable did satisfactory work, but 
before 8 o'clock snow and ice accumulated on 
the tracks, and the momentum of the cars was 
not sufficient to take them to the platforms. 
Engines had to pull the trains into the stations. 
The intervals between the trains grew longer, 
and the crowd which every morning rides over 
the bridge to New York was jammed up at the 
entrance of the bridge on Sands street. 

The string of people became so dense and 
so vociferous that the police feared trouble, 
and wooden bars were put up at the gate in 
Iront of the ticket choppers after a crowd had 
assenibled on the upper landing. The barriers 
were broken down, and with a yell the crowd 
burst through. They did not gain anything 
by It except to get under cover. The situation 
was made more vexatious by an accident on 
the New York side. A train of three cars was 
pulled by a motor from the north track a short 
distance west, when the last car slipped off 
from the icy rails, and it had to be raised with 



iaokscrews. This caused a delay of consider- 
ably over half an hour. Meanwhile the Brooli- 
lyn crowd of passengers waited. 

The bridge promenade was closed at 6 o'clock 
A. M. by order of Sergeant Phillips of the 
bridge police. When the crowd was biggest in 
front of the boxes a young man who said that 
he was Mr. Barnes, and was Secretary of the 
American Exchange, limited, at 162 Broadway, 
and that he had walked from Greenpoint, 
begged Sergeant Phillips to let him walk across 
■the bridge, because he feared he would lose 
his place if he was late. Sergeant Phillips con- 
sented, and the young man walked or rather 
staggered across the bridge until he became 
benumbed by cold and sore from being knock- 
ed against the iron railings by the wind. The 
policemen in their two snug houses under the 
towers had been warned by Sergeant Phillips 
by telephone to look out for Barnes. When 
Barnes arrived over the land span in New York 
he staggered and fell. Policemen followed 
him, and as he did not rise they yanked him to 
his feet and mai'ched him to the bridge en- 
trance. Alone, he would have perished. 

Some passengers secured cabs to ride across 
and others climbed upon trucks. 

Superintendent Martin arrived in the middle 
■of the forenoon in a cab and oi'dered the cable 
to bo stopped, because the grips failed to hold. 
Trains of two cars and two engines were put 
on, and afterward three cars and two engines, 
■with a headway of from five to ten minutes. In 
the afternoon the Brooklynites returning 
caused a big and perpetual jam on the bridge 
approaches in New York. Men, in their haste 
to get into the cars, smashed car windows and 
crushed each other's hats. 

Superintendent Martin hired a gang of Ital- 
ian laborers to keep the tracks clear, but most 
of them deserted before night. 

The bridge, on the whole, justified its crea- 
tion yesterday. 



€OZLISION IN THE STORM, AND AN 
ENGINEISR KILLED. 

One of the most distressing results of yes- 
terday's storm was a collision upon the Third 
avenue elevated road at Seventy-sixth street. 
It occurred in the early morning when traffic 
is usually heaviest, and, from accounts of eye- 
witnesses, it is a wonder that no greater calam- 
ity attended it than actually occurred. Only 
one death resulted from the accident. Several 
passengers were painfully injured, but no case 
■was serious enough to warrant sending the 
victim to a hospital. 

The collision occurred at 7:42 o'clock. Long 
before this hour the violence of the storm had 
Impeded the regular running of elevated trains, 
and every down-town station was crowded 
"with passengers. In some cases they had been 
waiting an hour, for such trains as managed to 
run over the slippery tracks made no bones of 
passing stations if it happened to be inconve- 
nient to stop. This Avas the case at Seventy- 
sixth street, which is at the bottom of grades 
running from Sixty-soventh street in one di- 
rection and Eighty-fourth street in the other. 
Nearly every train bound down town after day- 
break went by Seventy-sixth street at full 
speed in order to have force enough to climb 
the succeeding grade to Sixty-seventh street. 
It seems that it was understood by many of the 
engineers on the road that Seventy-sixth street 
■would be passed without stopping, and in the 
confusion resulting from interference by the 
storm with telegraph wires, it proved impos- 
sible for the general train despatcher to keep 
the various stations and train engineers accu- 
rately informed regarding the progress of 
trains on the down-town track. 



About twenty minutes past 7 a train stopped 
at Seventy-sixth street. It was so crowded, 
and so many people were waiting on the plat- 
form to got aboard, that the engineer pulled all 
the cars Out one beyond the southern end of 
the platform. A scramble for places followed, 
and the rear platform was quickly filled to the 
utmost capacity. Then the train waited for 
more than twenty minutes, because the track 
was so full of trains ahead that it was impos- 
sible to proceed up the grade to th« next sta- 
tion until the way was clear. 

Meantime another train drawn by two en- 
gines was crawling slowly over the track on 
its way down town. It was conducted by John 
Harty of 74 East 104th street. The engineer of 
the forward motor was Samuel Towle of 
Ninety-sixth street and Lexington avenue, and 
the fireman was Martin Byrne. John O'Con- 
nor of 143 East 113th street, was one of the 
guards. When this train arrived at Eighty- 
fourth street it had been twenty minutes since 
the last preceding down-town train and the 
engineer decided not to stop at Seventy-sixth 
street for fear that, if he did, he would not be 
able to climb the next grade. He therefore put 
on all steam down the grade and approached 
the Seventy-sixth street station at a speed 
much greater than that usually attained \i7 
elevated trains. 

All who attempted to traverse the streets 
yesterday know that the wind drove the snow 
so furiously through the air that it was impos- 
sible to see the distance of one short block. 
The forward engineer of the down coming 
train, therefore, could not see the train at a 
standstill just beyond the Seventy-sixth street 
station until he was almost upon it. The engi- 
neer of the forward train saw the danger of a 
collision at the same moment, and immediately 
endeavored to start his train southward out of 
the way. He had not succeeded in making a 
start before the crash came. 

The engineer and fireman of the second 
engine of this train jumped from their 
motor when thay saw the inevitable accident, 
and saved themselves by clinging to the tressle, 
Towle and Byrne of the leading engine, how- 
ever, stuck to their posts and did everything 
possible to render the collision less damaging. 
Towle's engine tore its way well into the rear 
car of the forward train, and the shock was so 
great that both the motor and the car were. 
lifted from the track into the air. They came 
down nearly upon the rails. The second en- 
gine of the colliding train broke the forward 
tender ail to pieces, and drove it forward so 
that Engineer Towle was pinned between it 
and the boiler of his engine. Byrne escaped 
with a severe shaking up. He was able to ren- 
der some assistance in the work of rescue. 

When the persons upon the rear platform of 
the forward train saw the engines dashing at 
them through the driving clouds of snow, they 
jumped over the gates to the platform, or 
crowded frantically into the densely packed 
car. Several women were among the passen- 
gers of the forward train, but their screams 
were drowned by the cries of the men. Th© 
conductor and guards wore prompt to assure 
the passengers that all danger was at an end 
the moment the shock was over, and nearly 
everybody quieted at once and went out of the 
cars in a fairly orderly manner. They jumped: 
down upon the tressle and made their way' 
back to the station platform without extraor- 
dinary excitement, and some of them fell to 
work in helping Engineer Towle from his ter- 
rible situation. His cries of pain wore plainly 
audible over the clamoring of the frightened 
passengers. 

The people in the colliding train behaved in 
a very different manner. Several through 
fright or thoughtless mischief raised a cry of 
fire, and the excitement was unbounded. As 
soon as the passengers could recover their feet 
after the shock they forced their way out by 
whatever means was readiest. Windows were 
broken on both sides of the cars, and men 
crawled through the openings thus made, glad 



or any escape however perilous from what tliey 
believed to be greater danger. 

Those on the platform were in wild confu- 
Bion, and lor several minutes little was done 
toward aiding the wounded. It was not until 
Police Captain Gunner of the Sixty-seventh 
street station arrived with several men that 
systematic efforts to quell the panic and care 
for the wounded were made. Then several 
men went to work with axes to clear away the 
wreck that imprisoned Engineer Towle. This 
work was speedily accomplished, and th6 body 
of the unfortunate man was lifted to the sta- 
tion platform. A moment later he died, and 
his body was soon afterward removed to the 
station house, and thence to his home. 

Never has there been such a day as yester- 
day in the history of the elevated railroads. It 
was not supposed that a snow storm could 
seriously affect travel on the trestles, but be- 
fore 10 o'clock all attempt at regularity in des- 
patching and running trains was abandoned, 
and not one-tenth of the number of trains 
iisually in progress on the roads were in mo- 
tion. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon notices were 
put out that no trains were running. A little 
before dark these notices reached the np-town 
stations. They were chestnuts then. In some 
cases the agents continued to sell tickets to 
all who had faith to buy until the formal no- 
tice from below was received that gave au- 
thority to suspend nickel gathering. 

There were three leading elements in the 
difficulties that beset the elevated railroad 
men. First, though not necessarily most im- 
portant, was the slipperiness of the rails, which 
rendered it difficult and dangerous to round 
curves, and almost impossible to climb steep 
grades, or stop Tithin the required bounds at 
stations. For this reason alone trains were 
obliged to move slowly and with added caution 
on account of the blinding, whirling snow 
which hid all objects at less than a 
block away. Secondly, the snow really 
had a chance at the elevated struc- 
tures where, as at 14:5th street, west, and 
.Eighty-ninth street, east, there are many sid- 
lings on which cars and engines are stored 
during the inactive hours of the night. At such 
places trains are made up in the morning to 
take passengers down town, and yesterday 
morning when the employees of the elevated 
road came to get cars and engines they found 
great drifts in front of them. These had to be 
cleared away before anything could be done, and 
as the wind heaped up the snow almost as fast 
as it could be cleared away, a considerable de- 
lay was unavoidable in despatching trains 
from the northern end of the island. Third, 
great difficulty was experienced in working the 
switches, because the snow was packed by the 
wind into the crevices between the rails like 
solid ice. and it required a special force of 
men with brooms and pails of salt water 
to keep the movable rails In working 
order. Even as the men labored at 
this branch of the work the salt 
water froze in the pails, and whenever 
a train arrived at a terminus it took several 
minutes of patient, hard endeavor to loosen 
the rails so that the switch could be thrown 
over. To all these causes for delay should be 
added the influence oi inertia, for once a block- ' 
ade is begun on a system of tracks, every min- 
ute adds to it, and a delay is bound to increase 
in force from hour to hour, just as a train gains 
speed in running down a grade. 

ON THE WKS'£ SIDE. 

Although many less passengers went to the 
stations on the west side north of Fifty-ninth 
street than usual, the platforms became 
crowded by 9 o'clock, for few of such trains as 
came along stopped at the appointed intervals. 



It 6ften happened that passengers wa-it- 
e'i upward of half an hour for a, 
train to arrive only to be refused en- J 
trance to it when finally stopped at a station, i 
The express train which takes passengers 
from the New York and Northern road 
to the Battery with few stops en route, waited 
for an hour beyond its schedule time for any 
train to arriae from the north at 155th street. 
Two trains of this kind are run on the west 
Bide via Ninth avenue, the first leaving at 8 
and the second at 9 o'clock. The second did not 
attempt the trip yesterday. Way trains along 
the Ninth avenue division, south of Fifty- 
ninth street, ran with reasonable regularity 
until nearly 10 A. M., and a few hundred pas- 
sengers were therefore fortunate enough to get 
to their places of business nearly on time. But 
these were only those who lived near Fifty- 
ninth street, for at that station all southward 
bound trains were densely crowded, and few 
were admitted at other stations. Some of the 
trains were so heavily loaded that the bodies 
of the cars were depressed until the flanges of 
the wheels grated against the floors. As there 
are no sharp curves on that line the trains 
moved at nearly their schedule speed until the 
general blockade affected the division. Traffic 
was substantially suspended on Ninth avenue 
at noon. , , , , 

Trains on Sixth avenue were blocked much 
earlier on account of the curves, and the 
greater demand for transportation on that di- 
vision. At ten minutes past 10 a train stopped 
at Twenty-third street, and after a wait of sev- 
eral minutes the guards announced that there 
was a solid block of trains extending south- 
ward as far as Chambers street. Most of th» 
" standees" and a few of the others promptly 
left the train, and proceeded the rest of tha 
way down town on foot. At that station th© 
ticket agent had sensibly closed the gate to 
iis offlce, so that patrons were not induced to 
buy tickets and endure a hopeless wait upon 
the chilly platform. 

At half-past 10 there was a narrow escape 
from an accident similar to that which resulted 
BO fatally at Seventy-sixth street on the east 
side. A downward train was pulling into the 
station when the engineer saw directly in front 
of him the rear car of another train. He had 
not been informed that the blockade extended 
so far north. He applied the brakes at once, 
but on account of the slipperyness of thetracka 
they had little effect, and the result was that 
his engine bumped smartly against the plat- 
form of the car in front. A general fright en- 
sued in both trains, but there were no injuries 
recorded either to people or rolling stock. 

The passengers on tne trains south of Twen- 
ty-third street who were imprisoned in cars 
that stood on the elevated structure between 
stations waited for hours for progress or relief. 
Some of them took the risk of getting out and 
walking over the ties to the nearest station, 
whence they made their way to the street. 
Most of them remained in the cars. About 1 
o'clock Capt. Copeland of the Ninth polica 
precinct on Charles street became aware 
of the situation and communicated to Super- 
inte^-dent Murray. A detail of policemen 
was then sent to that part of the road lying be- 
tween Eight and Fourteenth streets, where the 
blockade was thickest, and long ladders were 
carried there. These were placed against the 
trestle, and by means of these the passengers 
were slowly taken to the ground. Some en- 
terprising residents of the vicinity took a cu© 
from this, and added their endeavors to the 
work of rescue, charging five cents a head for 
passengers who were relieved from their aerial 
captivity by private ladders. 

Rumors of every kind were afloat during the 
afternoon and they grew to great proportions 
as the news spread about the collision at Sev- 
enty-sixth street. The most striking and start- 
ling report said that a train had been blown 
off the track at the great curve on the west side 
line between 110th and 105th streets. This 
was utterly without foundation, as no trains 
had passed over that section of the road since 
10 o'clock. As the blockade was gradually re- 
lieved on lower Sixth avenue, or the company 
ceased to try to run trains, a few cars were sent 
northward with workmen on board to look 
after the switches and keep the tracks as clear 
as possible. ,_ - . 



THE EAST SIDE LINES. 

The condition of things was little, if any, bet- 
ter on the Second and Third avenue divisions 
than on the west side. The accident at Sev- 
enty-sixth street brought about an immediate 
suspension of traffic on Third avenue, but for 
two or three hours after after it occurred there 
Avere blockades at the south, especially along 
the Bowery. It was discovered early in the 
[day that any attempt to run trains to South 
Ferry would result in forming a solid blockade 
south of Chatham square, and about noon the 
agents at the down-town stations were 
notified that no trains would be run 
'below Grand street. At irregular intervals, 
however, trains were despatclied from the City 
*,Hall station, but passengers were warned that 
they might not be able to get any further than 
Chatham square. After the middle of the day 
there was no attempt made to run trains to the 
north on Third avenue, but the stations were 
besieged with people who wanted to get back 
'to Harlem, or to the Thirty-fourth street ferry, 
or to the Grand Central Depot. Importunate 
passengers who hunted up Train Despatcher 
Carroll of the City Hall station were informed 
thtit their only chance for getting to Harlem 
was to walk to the Grand street station of the 
■Second avenue division, whence trains would 
he sent north at intervals of " when they could." 

" They won't stop this side of Sixth street." 
«aid Mr. Carroll. 

In consequence of this information and the 
general knowledge that trains were running 
<m Second avenue, a great crowd of pushing, 
frost-bitten, but good-humored passengers 
gathered upon the Grand street platform. 
Trains of two cars were sent out toward Har- 
lem as fast as trains from the north came in 
and the switches could be operated, and there 
wiTo cccasinal delavs from broken couplings 
that had to be replaced. Even at this the cars 
were run nearly beyond the depot, so that 
only the rear platform was available for 
entrance. In struggling for a place many of 
the passengers fell to the trestle and there 
were narrow escapes from tumbles into the 
street. Mr. Carroll's word was nearly correct. 
Xo stops were made on most of the trains short 
of Thirty-fourth street, and a howling mob of 
disappointed ticket-buying patrons was left on 
the platforms of the more southern stations. 
Even when stops were made it was only to lot 
passengers ofl', and the engineer drew the 
trains to points several rods from the plat- 
form, so that passengers had to get down to 
the narrow walk alongside the rail and walk 
back. There was often an interval of forty-five 
minutes between trains on Second avenue 
going up town, although the down trains ran 
more frequently. 

At the headquarters of the elevated roads 
there was the usual ignorance of what was go- 
ing on on the various divisions. At 2 o'clock 
P. M. no one there had heard of the accident at 
Seventy-sixth street. Manager Hain was at 
home sick, and the Superintendent was out 
trying to untangle the snarl on Sixth avenue. 
tktinct to bkeak through. 

Late in the afternoon trains began running 
on the Ninth avenue elevated road, starting 
from the yards near the upper terminus. First 
a single train was despatched with a double- 
header, and it worked its way down at a very 
s!i iw rate, for there were numei'ous drifts, and 
whenever one was encountered the engines 
had to back for a distance and then advance 
with all the steam turned on. Soon after the 
first train other ti-ains were sent out at inter- 
■vals of a few minutes to keep the track clear 
(if the shifting snow. Before 9 o'clock the way 
was iipen as far down as Fiftieth street on the 
Sixth avenue line, and for some tin^e all the 
trains were reversed on a switch just above tliis 
point, and they returned on tlie eastern track 
ti. Harlem. All the stations above Fiftietli 
street were crowded with people who bought 
tickets and dropped them into the box, only to 
find that the trains carried no passengers, 
although they stopped at every station for 
more than a minute. Many of the people 
waited for several hours and then went away, 
forfeiting their fare. The road for once made 
quite as much by carrying no passengers at all 
as when the cars are crowded to the platforms. 
Later in the evening, the tnick^ was cleared 



on a considerable portion of the Sixth avenue 
line, o 

The Brush Electric Light Company sent word 
to Fire Headquarters that they would bo able 
to light up only Broadway and Sixth avenue as 
far as Twenty-eighth street. All their other 
circuits would be closed at 7 o'clock. Thirty- 
fourth street was in utter darkness from 
Broadway to the East Piiver after 7 o'clock. 

A reporter of The Sun, who had an early 
assignment requiring his presence in the lower 
part of the city, had what seemed to him a 
very unpleasant experience of elevated rapid 
transit under the conditions of yesterday, but 
it was one that was shared by at least 50,000 
other New Yorkers at the same time. He 
reached the Eighteenth street down-town sta- 
tion on Sixth avenue a little after 8 o'clock 
A. M. No train was in sight, and he was told 
that " no train had come down for thirty-five 
minutes," and " none had gone up for a h — of a 
while." After some ten minutes of waiting a 
down train slowly crawled to the station. It 
was loaded to the muzzle. There were some 
persons aboard who wanted to get off there. 
To enable them to do so, the men nearest th« 
gates had to climb over them to the statioa 
platform before the gates could be opened. 
Three trains similarly laden came in, and 
moved out with their seats, aisles, and plat- 
forms so packed that not even one small boy 
more could have got aboard. 

The train moved down a little below Seven- 
teenth street and stopped. It stayed there 
more than two hours. Then it moved ten feet 
and stopped another hour; ten feet more and 
another hour ; finally to a little below Sixteenth 
street, and there it stuck until 5 minutes be- 
fore 3 o'clock. 

Meanwhile, men took some desperate meas- 
ures to reach the Fourteenth street station, 
less than two blocks away, or tne street. A 
few clambered out on the west side of the cars 
to the foot-wide top of the iron wall, almost 
level with the car platforms, and, balancing 
upon it, supi)orting themselves against the 
cars, walked to the station iilatform. Many 
got out on the east side and walked the ties 
to the same point. The ties were slippery, 
and, such was the force of the gale 
much of the time. that those who 
attempted these perilous feats were 
in imminent danger of being blown 
from the track into the street, and found them- 
selves compelled to go on their hands and 
knees. The blinding force of the drifting snow 
lent an additional peril to the desperate en- 
deavor, particvilarly at the moments of great- 
est risk, when the escaping victim of the train 
let himself down to feel with his I as for the 
single connecting tie between the down and up 
tracks, and when turning on that scant perch 
he made his plunge for the ties of the up track 
beyon'^.. 

6 After a long time somebody in the street 
raised a ladder. It was too short to reach the 
track. To get on it one had to swing down and 
grope with his toes for its topmost round, see- 
ing nothing, numbed and confused by the ele- 
mental rage about him and the cold, hustled 
by others behind and himself crowding others 
in front, in such eager haste on the part of all 
that the ladder was kept full of descending 
men for some time. 

Then a darky brought two ladders lashed to- 
gether and so made long enough to t-xtend 
above the side wall of the track, so that it was 
comparatively easy of access. He charged 
twenty-five cents for each descent by his route, 
standing at the top of the ladder and collect- 
ing from each person, shouting from time to 
time, "Look out dah down b'low, Wil'm; hole 
date laddah fas; ketch dis umboril ; don't let de 
laddah slip." and caught not less than $40 from 
his eager patrons. One woman, a brave, ad- 
venturous little lady of middle age, who had a 



very businesslilcf air, -went down by the ladder. 

With what astonishinerly good nature "that 
train load of people waited! There were men 
aboard who had started before 8 o'clock from 
125th street and had important business down 
town, but they took the situation philosophi- 
cally, joking over its discomforts and making 
new and often apparently agreeable acQuaiu- 
tances in their all-around good-humored chat. 
There wei-e a few ladies aboard, who were 
going down town to business and had their 
lunches with them, and, after four or five hours 
of imprisonment, they appeared to find no little 
comfort in that fact. 

At one time, the mathematical fiend, who 
seems to infest every place, came near creating 
some alarm and was evidently proportionately 
happy. He figured that there were not less 
than eighty trains on the downtown track, con- 
sisting of five cars each, with an average of 100 
passengers in each car, who— as they were 
nearly all men— might be averaged at 150 
pounds weight each. That would give a total 
of 3,000 tons of human beings, in addition to 
the enormous weight of the rolling stock, and 
engines and snow, all on one side of the struc- 
ture, and, he said, " it would be nothing 
strange if the whole business slumped over 
sidewise into the street." But as 
people obsei'ved .that it didn't slump 
they appeared to become aecustomea to the 
situation ana resigned to take their chances. 
Then he went to figuring on how many woul4 
be likely to get deadly pneumonia fi-om the 
savage draughts of air through the ears, 
caused by the incessant rushes, to and fro, of 
desperate men looking for ladders or some 
other way of getting out of their trap. At every 
minute the door, at one or the other end of the 
car, would be dragged open and the storm 
would rush in with a scream, dashing its bur- 
den of snow into people's faces almost half the 
length of the car. To add to the gen- 
eral discomfort and emphasize the math- 
ematical fiend's calculations, the engineer, 
to economize his steam, shut off the heat from 
the cars, and a North Pole temperature pre- 
vailed. The windows were coated thickly with 
ice, so that only by vigorous scraping of them 
could a glimpse of the street be obtained. Still, 
people smiled at the idea of pneumonia, kept 
up a vigorous stamping, buttoned their coats 
more tightly, and joked. 

"If we could only smoke, this situation would 
be a little more endurable," suggested some- 
body in the car where the reporter was, and 
the suggestion awoke a chorus of assent. 
_ " Happy thought!" suggested somebody else, 
"for the company's rules prescribe that any- 
body who smokes shall be put off the train, and 
that being what we all want, we should all 
smoke." 

There were five ladies in the car. The first 
one asked if she would object to smoking, said 
very pleasantly: 

"Not at all; I would be happy to see you gen- 
tlemen find some mitigatton of our common 
discomfort." The second said: 

"No; I wish I could smoke with you," The 
third replied: 

" Certainly ; I am not so selfish as to deny to 
others a pleasure that I cannot share." 

The fourth also gave pleasant and ready 
consent. 

A consensus of opinion reached the eonclu- 
Bion among the would-be smokers at the fur- 
ther end of the car from where the fifth woman 
was that she was too hard to get at to be ask- 
ed, and she looked as if she could stand smoke, 
or pretty much anything else, so the ventila- 
tors above were opened, and a few cigars and 
cigarettes were lighted. 

Instantly a little ferret-faced fellow with a 
red nose, who announced himself as being in 
company with the fifth woman, made a tu- 
multuous kick. He declared that the smoke 
made her very sick, that she was almost faint- 
ing, and he seemed upon the verge of apoplexy. 
The cigars and cigarettes were extinguished 
in deference to the woman, and a gloom set- 
tled down over the previously jolly party. 

Then everybody voiced the opinion that the 
person responsible for such outrageous man- 
agement of the trains must be an immeasura- 
ble and unspeakable ass; that during the six 
hours of waiting it would have been easy to 



know what the chances were for forwardhgr 
trains and to back all trains up a little to sta- 
tion platforms, so that passengers desiring to 
escape from the infernal trap might do so : and 
that the sooner an underground rapid transit 
was afl'orded for New York the better. 

Everybody was in a bad humor when at 
length the train was backed up to the Eigh- 
teenth street station again and emptied in- 
stantly of all but the train hands. It took the 
reporter just six hours and twenty-five min- 
utes to go two and a half blocks and back 
■again by rapid transit on the elevated railroad, 

BITS OF TRAVEL. 



The Man frum Omaha Helpa BesuIIe the 
Way Bown leTv^n. 

Among' the passengers waitingr for a train 
; at the Eighty-first street station of the Sixth 
avenue elevated railroad at 9 o'clock yesterday 
morning was a tall, stout man in a long Irish 
frieze overcoat and a high silk hat. He was 
ruddy and bluflf, and had a voice like a steam 
whistle. The big waiting room was crowded, 
and this gentleman took the responsibility of 
advising everybody else what to do. 

Most of the crowd had been there for nearly 
three-auarters of an hour. A train had passed 
in the mean time, but the crowd had been in- 
• duced not to attempt to board it by the con- 
ductor, who assured the people that there was 
I another train right behind, and that he had to 
hurry up for fear of a collision. A half hour 
had passed, and the expected train had not< 
I appeared. 

" After a careful consideration of that con- 1 
ductor's statement," said the stout man, " I am; 
forced to the conclusion that he lied with 
malice aforethought. Was it for our sakes that - 
he gave us a bluff about another train coming ' 
right along ? No 1 Then why did he do it ? Be- 
cause he was born a liar, and had to lie be- 
cause he couldn't help it. I have a present- 
ment that a complaint is going to be lodged' 
against that man, and that my name is going; 
,to be signed to it. When I was in Omaha, in. 
1869, a blizzard struck me late one night on a 
big prairie— a blizzard and a snow storm, and 
jthey raged for thirty-six hours. What saved. 
me ? Matches ! I had a lot of sulphur matches 
iin mypocket. and when I saw the storm comins 
'I whipped off all my clothes ana rubbed the 
[phosphorus over every portion of my body un- 
|til I shone like a monster glowworm. Then I 

lUt myself 

I There was the rumble of a train, and through) 
|the whirling clouds of snow the black front of 
I an engine was seen wearily puffing along. 
j " Follow me," shouted the big man, as he 
'surged up toward the south end of the plat- 
form. The crowd followed. The first words of 
'the conductor were: 

I " Don't be in a hurry, gents, another train, 
will be along in two minutes, and it is empty."" 

" No, you don't," yelled the mob, " open this 
here gate." 

The big man receded to the outskirts of the- 
crowd and shouted: 

" He's a liar; J^orce that gate." 

The gate was opened and the people pushed 
their way on board. The big man was almost 
there when he was thrust back, the gate was 
banged to, and the starting bell rang. As the 
ti-ain moved away a chorus of " Ah, there, 
Omaha!" was shouted by the fortunate ones. 

A_peculiarity of the jammed, trodden upon, 
and helpless passengers was their extreme 
good nature. You couldn't offend them, and 
no matter what happened, they only laughed. 
The first car was packed so close that it was 
impossible to move. 

'■ Come in and shut the door." cried a man in. 
the middle of the car. 



y "Move up," was the derisive answer, and 
there was a yell of laughter. 

"Let go ol my loot!" screamed a boy in 
agony. 

"Change for Ninth avenue trains," bawled 
the conductor at Fifty-ninth street. 

"Are there any Ninth avenue trains?" asked 
a passenger. 

" Loads." 

At this unexpected answer a dozen confiding 
individuals left the train. 

At Twenty-eighth street a man in the centre 
of the train cried out: 

" 1 want to get out at Twenty-eighth street. 
What station is this V" 

Half a dozen voices promptly replied. "Thir- 
ty-third." 

" Oh. no: don't deceive the poor man," said a 
woman. " Tliis is Twenty-eighth street." 

The man tried to got out, but it was impos- 
sible, and he finally gave it up. 

At the Twenty-third street station the con- 
ductor said : 

" You can take your choice and get out here 
or take your chance of getting down town. 
There's a block just below here." About a 
dozen men got out, and those who didn't were 
afterward seen trudging back to the station on 
the ice-covered tracks. 



A few Broadway cars were sent out from 
the Fiftieth street stables at 5 A. M. yesterday 
with two drivers on the front platform of each 
and four horses. Then the snow plough was 
sent out. But the wind blew the snow back on 
the tracks. 

The cars frequently ran off the track and 
were dragged through the snow. At times the 
horses tugged in vain to move the car, and 
drivers and conductors were often assisted to 
put cars on the track by passengers. More 
frequently cars were abandoned, and the 
drivers unhitched their horses and drove back 
to the stables. Oars were left standing from 
Broadway to ihe Battery. 

In the afternoon Superintendent Neville sent 
out horses to draw the cars to the stable. Con- 
ductors and drivers remained in the stables. 
Superintendent Neville said: 

"Our most serious difficulty is the wind, 
which blow the snow on the tracks. The 
horses suffer terribly. It is impossible to keep 
the cars running. I do not know when busi- 
ness will be resumed." 

The Avenue C and Pavonia Ferry Eailroad 
and the Chambers street road stopped running 
after thev had sent out a few cars. A few ears 
on the Seventh avenue road were sent out but 
they were called in. The Sixth avenue road 
began early to send out cars, and after an 
hour's experiment recalled them. 

An attempt was made about 8 P. M. to open 
the road for traffic. A snow plough drawn by 
ten horses and manned by a score of men was 
sent out, but the wheels could not be kepd on 
the tracks, and the attempt was given up. 
■ On cross-town roads the south track was free . 
of snow, while the north was buried in mounds 
five feet deep. 

The Avenue B line sent out only one car. and 
that only to save its charter. 

Car 47 of the Second avenue line was aban- 
doned about 7 P. M. in Clinton street, near 
Grand street. At 8 o'clock not a street ear 
could be had anywhere on the east side. Cars 
half buried in the snow were seen here and 
there. Some were filled with women and boys, 
who found in them a temporary shelter. 

Travel on the Third avenue surface road 
was entirely suspended. The last ear left Six- 
ty-seventh street depot at 9 A. M. The big 
plough was sent to Harlem Bridge early in tlie 
morning with ten horses attached. Several 
cars were made ready to follow it. but they did 
not reach l'25th street. More horses were sent 
for, and six came up from the depot, but all 
sixteen ot them failed to drag the plough 
further than 111th street, and there the crew 
had to leave it on the track. 



Five ears of the Third avenue line were aban- 
doned at various points between the depot and 
City Hall. 

On the Second avenue surface road fifteen 
cars were abandoned in various parts of the 
road. 

On the Fourth Avenue Bailroad no ears were 
running after 10 A. M. In the middle of the 
Fourth avenue tunnel at Thirty-fourth street 
was a series of big snow drifts. 

When the storm began ten night cars were 
running on the Eighth Avenue Railroad. All 
but five of these were called in and the teams 
were doubled. About 4 o'clock these were 
taken off, and three snow ploueha, with ten. 
horses each, were sent out, but snow eovennl 
the tracks again in so short a time that nothing 
further was done. No day cars were sent out 
at 6 A. M. or afterward. 

The Ninth avenue line mns no ears late at 
night, but at S!4 yesterday momioj; it sent a 
enow plough up to 116th street for the purpose 
of getting the track ready for day traffic, which 
was to begin at 6 A. M. When the plough re- 
turned from the upper terminns the track that 
had been cleared was just as bad as the oth^r, 
and 60 it was decided to run no ears 
during the day on the section above 
Fifty-fourth street ; but at 6 o'clock the snow 
plow started down town, getting as far as Canal 
street. Ten cars were sent out at intervals ot 
a few minutes after it. One of them g:ot as far 
as Canal street and got stuck, end the other 
nine stopped at points between Canal streeft 
and the stables. Extra horses had to be p-cnt 
out to bring back both the plough and the cars, 
and the last one was towed into the barns at 
11 o'clock. 

Whistling:, screeching, and howling around 
the top stories of the Fire Headquarters build- 
ing till it almost drowned the voices of Assist- 
ant Superintendent Farrell and Secretary Jud- 
son, the blizzard seemed to mock at their dis- 
comfiture, and glory in the destruction it was 
doing in their department. Until 4 P. M. only 
two alarms of fire were received, ine first 
alarm from Sixteenth street and First avenue, 
aiad one from the box nearest the accident on 
the Third avenue "L"road. This latter call 
was a precautionary measure in case of the 
cars catching fire. At all engine houses order."* 
were i-eceived to have four horses ready to 
hitch to steamers and trucks, and two to carts. 

" This is the worst storm we have ever had," 
said Mr. Farrell to a Sun reporter, " Wires are 
down all over the city. There are now d P. M.) 
75 boxes out of order below Houston street, 
100 between there and here (Sixty-seventh 
street), and 200 north of us. There are 1,000 
boxes in the city altogether. In case of fire 
there are some districts that we could not 
reach at all, but most of the fire companies can 
be reached by us by the gong, telephone, or 
combination circuit. The latter is worked by 
a Morse key and sounder. The chief trotible 
we have to encounter is the falling of telegraph 
poles across our wires, and we hear there are 
many down in all parts of the city. With a 
force of twenty-five men to work on the poles 
and thirty more ground hands, I think we shall 
be able to have the wires in good condition 
again in less than twelve hours after the storm 
subsides." 

At the request of Chief Shay, through such 
police wires as were working and by polieo 
mes.'^engers, all police station houses were 
notified to instruct policemen to be watchful 
for fires, and in case of the discovery of a fire 
not only to send out the alarm, but to go to tha 
nearest engine house. 

Communication between Police Headquar- 
ters and stations was badly broken up. Out of 
the thirty-five precincts only seven were able 
to telegraph to Central Office. These were in 
Leonard street, Elizabeth street. Prince street, 
Charles street, Mulberry street, and West Thir- 



tletn streeT;, and oh Pier 31, North Eiver. Oc- 
casionally East Twenty-second street and East 
Thirty-fifth street were able to use the wires. 
The others employed DOlii36men to carry de- 
spatches to Headquarters. One policeman 
came from High Bridge and another walked all 
the way from West 100th street. Both left 
Headquarters with the expectation of walking 
back. 

In the afternoon notification was received at 
Police Headquarters that the electric light 
companies would be unable to work their 
plants. The information was imparted to po- 
licemen who went on post at 6 o'clock, with in- 
structions not to leave their posts to report 
lights out. and to answer all qaestions of night 
])edestriaDS on the subject. A good many lights 
■worked, after iill. 

An effort was made to mend the disconnect- 
ed police wires. Linemen were sent out to sev- 
eral points. They scaled a number of poles in 
the hope of repairing damage, but the storm 
raged so furiously that they were unable to do 
.anything, and their perilous undertakings 
brought no benefit to the Police Department. 

A lineman went on the roof of Police Head- 
quarters to -straighten out the wires there. He 
came down looking like an icicle. 

Five plays new to the city were to have 
been acted at as many theatres last night. 
Circumstances over which the actors had no 
control necessitated a postponement of aU of 
these "first nights." They were Eobert B. 
Mantell in "Monbars" at the Fifth Avenue, 
Maggie Mitchell in "Maggie, the Midget," at 
the Fourteenth Street; Ludwig Barnay. the 
German tragedian, in "Kean" at the Academy; 
"Town and Country" at Wallack's. and Herr 
Bandmanu in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" at 
Kiblo's. 

At 5 o'clock Herr Barnay's managers an- 
nounced that the blizzard, was of no conse- 
quence so far as they were concerned, and that 
Herr Barnay would surely make his bow in the 
Academy of Music as announced. It is under- 
stood that the management was all ready at 
8 o'clock, and that the entire company were on 
hand, having been brought from their lodgings 
in $15 cabs. But the blizzard was greater 
than the management thought. It had 
been circumvented by the actors, but the 
audience had not taken the same pains, and 8 
o'clock found precisely twelve per.sons sitting 
in the body of the house. In the galleries 
there were not more than 100, and in view of 
this meagre attendance the stage manager was 
constrained to announce that HerrBaruay's 
performance would be postponed. Many of 
those who had braved the storm wei-e keenly 
grieved, and expressed their ieelings roundly. 
But there was no help for it. The manage- 
ment bad come up bravely, but the blizzard 
won. 

Daly's, the Star, and Dockstader's were the 
only Broadway theatres at which perform- 
ances were given. Daly's contained about 150 
people, who saw a good performance of "A Mid- 
summer Wight's Dream." though there were 
one or two changes in the cast, necessitated by 
the non-arrival at the theatre of actors in the 
company. 

About 100 people were in Pastor'.s. Mana- 
ger Harry Sanderson said he gave a perform- 
ance because ho thought it only fair treatment 
to those who had braved, the storm to attend 
the show. All but two of the performers on the 
programme appeared. Maggie Cliue was ready 
to play, but her wnrdrobe trunk had failed to 
arrive at the theatre. 

Irving and Miss Terry went to the Star in a 
carnage, and "Eaust" was nluyed to a sparse 
yudience. At Daly's,a few people asked to have 



their rdoney refunded. The house had been 
sold in advance. Corlnne was singing Tow- 
Tom in " Arcadia," at Dockstader's to a pretty 
good house— considering the blizzard. Some 
people in her company, however, were missing. 

The Standard and Niblo's had notices to the 
effect that tickets for Monday would be ex- 
changed to-night. Harrigan's, the Bijou, Wal- 
lack's, Fifth Avenue, Casino, and the New 
Broadway were dark. 

The Bowery houses were deserted. No show 
was given at the Thalia nor the People's, where 
Nat Goodwin was to have opened a week's en- 
gagement. 

The financial loss to the theatres will be 
about $20,000 on last night alone. Two or three 
managers displayed shrewd business tact. 
These were notably Irving and Augustin Daly. 
Their houses had been sold ahead very largely. 
particularly in Mr. Daly's case. As he refunded 
money to those who came to the theatre, and 
gave a performance for those who came to stay, 
his obligation is over, he will probably halt. 
Those who neither used their tickets nor had 
their money refunded will perhaps lose their 
investment. 

To a philosopher hke Phlneas Tayler Bar- 
num, whose big show has wrestled with six 
fires and come out of them greater than ever, a 
thing like the blizzard was simply a new form 
of experience and an unexpected medium for 
demonstration that the greatest show on earth 
rises easily superior to freaks of fate 
that down any ordinarily constituten human 
enterprise. Twice yesterday the combined 
shows were disrilai ed in Madison Square Gar- 
den, and though the New Yorkers who braved 
the blizzard to get there to see the spectacle 
numbered only a sparse hundred at each per- 
formance, every detail of the bewildering per- 
formance was gone through with. 

The difTerent acts in the programme aggre- 
gated over a hundred in number, and they 
kept acrobats and jugglers and merry-makers 
busy in three rings and a central stage lor two 
hours. 

Not a train had moved out of the Grand 
Central Depot all day, and only one had come 
in. President Chauncey M. Depew of the 
New York Central was one of a dozen men in 
the executive offices who reported for duty. 
Fifty were missing. 

The pleasant frame of mind that character- 
ized Mr. Depew was not shared by his subor- 
dinates. Every attempt to communicate with 
station agents after 8 A. M. had proved unsuc- 
cessful. The waiting rooms were crowded 
with travellers anxious to depart, and persons 
waiting to hear from friends who were en 
route to this city. To neither could the officials 
give the slightest satisfaction, 

HAULING IN THE BOSTON EXPEESS. 

Nor was the condition of affairs on the New 
Haven any better. The one train that suc- 
ceeded in getting through was a train that had 
started long before the storm began. The ex- 
press that leaves Boston at 10:30 P. M., and 
which is due in New York at 6:20 A. M., got as 
far as Hartford before any part of the storm 
was encountered. That was 2 :41 A. M. The 
train had started under a comparatively clear 
sky. Clouds were encountered at Hartford, 
but the air was mild, and there was no 
reason to expect anything more than a light 
rain storm. At New Haven, at 3:58 A. M., 
snow was coming Idown lightly but regularly. 
The further the trains travelled from that city 
the denser the storm became. At Stamford the 
first signs of the blizzard that was prevailing in 
New York showed themselves. , From thereon 
the storm was similar to the one that pre- 
vailed in New York. The wind drove against 



the train and around it so that the engineer 
'didn't know which way it was coming. The 
storm increased in intensity. Snow drifts had 
-•covered the tracks in all places where these 
run through depressed cuts. The wind de- 
creased the heat in the cars and the passengers 
began to doh their wraps. Those that had 
sleepers piled their overcoats on to their blanK- 
ets and swore at the porter. Sleep was impos- 
sible after leaving Stamford because of the fre- 
■quont stops and the jerks as the trains started. 
The train reached the Harlem bridge three 
*^ Siours late. From there its progress was much 
impeded, until it finally stopped altogether at 
Fifty-ninth street. All attempts to move it from 
there proved futile. A bank of snow fully five 
feet deep had formed across the track. It was 
BOW after 11 A. M., and all the passengers were 
fully awake and aware of the situation. They 
€0t out and discussed the diffieulty among 
themselves. Some were prepared to leave the 
train, but the announcement that a mes- 
senger had been despatched to the Grand Cen- 
tral Depot for assistance deterred them. In a 
short time an engine came pufHng along slow- 
ly, and assisted after the drift had been cleared 
away in pulling the train through. When the 
passengers arrived in the depot they were still 
further disgusted upon learning that no cars or 
elevated trains were running. Cabs were final- 
ly secured by such as could pay $5 a mile, and 
the others had to walk. The train was five 
hours late. 

THE STAMFORD LOCAL STUCK AT IIOTH STBEET. 

That was the last and only train to8reach the 
depot. The only other that came anywhere 
near ic was the Stamford loea.1, on the same 
road. That left Stamford at 5 A. M. It had 
reached 110th street at 10^ A. M. This train 
was crowded with brokers and business men. 
The Boston express had passed the same spot 
■with difHculty a half hour previous, and the 
■wind and snow had put in effective work since 
then. The drifts were piled so high that it was 
impossible to pass them. After a number of 
vain attempts a brakeman was sent on foot to 
the depot. He had hard work getting there, 
but his errand was fruitless. The officials had 
been endeavoring for some time to get an en- 
gine through the Fourth avenue tunnel, but 
had found it now absolutely impossible. 

The passengers were furious when the mes- 
senger returned with his answer, but there was 
no help for it. One courageous passenger who 
was on important business refused to be com- 
forted, and started off on foot. He succeeded 
in pushing his way through the drifts, and 
reached the Grand Central Depot by wav of the 
tracks an hour and a half later. He was com- 
pletely exhaused, and paid $20 for a cab to 
take him down town. He refused to tell his 
name. The remaining passengers stayed in 
the cars, and took such comfort as they 
could out of the provisions supplied by a 
neighboring restaurant at the order of the rail- 
road company. 

NO NEWS OF THE MISSING TRAINS. 

The leading officials of the railroad had be- 
come convinced of the danger that lay in the 
attempt to run trains early in the day. None 
had been allowed to leave the depot, and fran- 
tic attempts ware made to reach the agents 
alone the route. It was impossible to commu- 



nicate with any of them after 8 A. M. No word 
had been received from the agent at New Ha- 
ven after midnight on Sunday, and even Mount 
Vernon could not be reached after 8 o'clock. 
Th« last word received by wire from any offi- 
cial connected with the road stated that tele- 
graph wires were down everywhere, and that 
the poles lay across the tracks in many places. 
The long-distance telephone owned by the 
New Haven Company could not be worked 
either. The tunnel from Fifty-ninth street to 
Ninety-sixth street was blocked. 

TBTING TO FEED THE BESIEGED. 

The train despatcher said that eight local 
trains on the Harlem division of the road were 
stalled between stations. As far as possible 
word had been conveyed to the conductors to 
supply the passengers with provisions and 
such other comforts as could be obtained 
These messages were sent by wire and fast 
messengers, but their efficacy was admittedly 
doubtful where the trains were far from ca- 
terers and retaurants, and had to de- 
pend on the propinquity of farm houses. 
Superintendent Turner said that he had 
done all he could to relieve passen- 
gers, but, in the uncertainty prevailing, could 
venture no opinion as to their condition. None 
of these local trains, of course, are fitted with 
any sleeping accommodations, and the result 
last night cannot have been pleasant. Not the 
slightest tidings had been received as to the 
condition of the trains on the main line, but 
the superintendent thought that these had all 
been stopped in time. Where trains were de- 
layed in towns over night the company will 
pay hotel bills. In the depot a group of con- 
ductors of the road were gathered. They said 
that three and four engines had been put 
on single trains that were stalled along 
the route, but without any appreciable 
effect. They said that the tunnel in the city 
was not only blocked at the entrances, but that 
the air holes along the street had admitted the 
snow in large quantities, and that under these 
holes the snow was seven feet deep. Where the 
tracks ran in cuts with banks on each side, the 
snow had filled up the depressions even to the 
tons of the bank?. They declared that four 
trains were stalled along the main road be 
sides the eight locals, I3ut they did not know 
the exact time on which these started. 

HOPELESS EFFORTS TO CLEAR THE TUNNEL. 

Mr. Depew said that he had employed 300 
Italians to clear the snow off the tracks in the 
yards and the tunnel, but they gave out in a 
short time. All the woi-k that they had done in 
several hours was rendered useless in a few 
minutes by the storm. Three hundred more 
were employed yesterday afternoon. They 
were put under the personal direction of Supt. 
Toucey. That astute otficial took them to a 
cheap restaurant before setting them to work 
and gave them a good dinner. He thought 
they would be able to stand the weather better 
under such circumstances than otherwise, and 
held out further inducements to them. They 
were put at work at 5>2 P. M., but with all en- 
couragement were able to make only slight 
headway. 

FORTY HUDSON AND HARLEM TRAINS SNOWED IN. 

Not a single train on the Hudson River or the 
Harlem branches was able to reach the depot, 
and Superintendent Toucey declared that forty 
trains on the different branches were snowed 
in. Many of these, he said, were undoubtedly 
stalled between stations. Mr. Depew sent out 
an engine immediately upon reaching his 
office to break auWay through the snow drifts 



in tlie tunnel. This engine tad fabt this slight^ 
est effect, and a second was sent out to aid it. 
This, also, did no good, and a third was de- 
spatched to the scene. The three engines were 
coupJed together and made a united effort to 
break through the snow. The only result was 
the derailing of the last engine, which narrowly 
escaped toppling over. After that no effort 
was made to force a way through the tunnel. 

FOOTED IT FEOM SPUTTEN DUTVIL. 

Superintendent Toucey said that most of the 
local trains on which the commuters of the 
road travel had been ca<i :!it between stations. 
Thev were scattered along the road from 
Spuyten Duyvil to the (irand Central Depot. 
Mr. Depew sent an employee of the road to 
126th street to communicate, if possible, from 
there with the conductors of the stalled trains 
and order them to supoly the passengers with 
proyisions. As far as could be heard from, that 
had already been done. Mr. Depew admitted 
that most of the unfortunates who were caught 
in the local trains were wealthy brokers and 
business men, and smiled sadly as he thought 
of the wrath that would come down upon 
him and his fellow officials from these 
patrons of his road. A despatch received at 
the superintendent's office late in the after- 
noon stated that the storm had reached Utica 
and was becoming violent there. There had 
been very little snow at Peekskill at 7 A. M., 
but it came down rapidly after that. No trains 
had left Albany all day, as far as could be 
learned. A man walked into Mr. Depew's office 
in the afternoon and announced angrily that 
he had footed it all the way from Spuyten Duy- 
vil after paying his fare on a train. He had 
business that compelled him to reach New 
York, and the only means of transportation 
that he could get for love or money were his 
feet. 

Superintendent Toucey said that he had re- 
fused all offers of freight and could not tell 
when the roads would be opened to traffic 
again. 

"If the storm were to stop now," he said [it 
was then 4 o'clock], "I might be able to clear 
the roads by sunrise." 

THE T>., L. ANDW. TIED IIP. 

In the yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna 
and Western gangs of shovellers were battling 
with the rapidly building drifts, in order to 
make way for the engines, which were at work 
with small ploughs keeping thelsnow from the 
entrances to the tunnel. Superintendent Eea- 
soner of the M. and E. division sat in his office 
with the passenger agent. 

" You bring the first news we have heard from 
New York, or from the outside world, in fact, 
since 9 o'clock this morning, " he said. [It was 
nearly 4 P. M.] "' At 10 all trains on the division 
were stopped. They are laid up all along the 
road. The last train got in about 2 P. M. from 
Boonton, N J., thirty-five miles out. The usual 
number of people came on the morning trains. 
A train going west about 10 o'clock stuck at the 
west end of the tunnel between here and New- 
ark. We are now trying our best to get it 
through. All our wires are down. There has 
been no telegraphic communication since 7 A, 
M, The division is eighty miles long and ex- 
tends to Easton. Pa." 

About 4 P. M. the Weehawken ferryboats 
stopped running from both Forty-second and 
Jay streets. It was reported that no West 
Shore trains had moved since early in the 
morning. 

NO THKOUGH TKAINS ON JERSEY CENTEAL. 

Of the thirty-five or forty trains scheduled to 
arrive yesterday morning at the Jersey City 
terminus of the various divisions of the Cen- 
tral Railroad of New Jersey, scarcely half a 
dozen succeeded in ploughing a way through 
the snow and into the station. One or two got 
near euougli to permit passengers reckless of 
frozen ears and noses to walk to the ferry, but 
the rest stuck fast in the big drifts that every- 
where buried the tracks deep out of sight. 

No trains arrived or departed on the Long 
Branch division, and no through trains on any 
division. The early local trains from Somer- 
ville and Koselle wore delayed an hour or more 
at Elizabeth by a Pennsylvania train caught in 
a drilt at the crossing. When that obstacle 
was removed, fresh ones, in the shape of snow 



drifts reaching up almost to the locomotive 
headlights were encountered every few rods. 
The two trains arrived at the Communipaw 
station almost togetherat 10 o'clock, eachhav- 
ing consumed four hours in accomplishing its 
short run. The Koselle train, having got under 
good headway after crossing the Pennsylvania 
tracks in Elizabeth, ran by the Spring street 
station, leaving two hundred operatives of the 
Singer Sewing Machine Company without the 
means of reacMog the factory. 

A train from Newark struggled in a little 
after 10 o'clock, and stuck fast just outside the 
station. The 7 o'clock Somerville accommoda- 
tion was the next to arrive at 1:30 in the after- 
noon. When the jassengers had been dis- 
charged the two eogines attached to the train 
endeavored to back it out of the station and 
succeeded, but no more. The last car could 
not be moved a dozen yards beyond the shed. 
At 4 o'clock the last train of the day pushed in 
as far as the round house, and the passengers- 
were compelled to walk to the ferry through, 
the blinding snow. They had come from Plain- 
field and intermediate points, and some of 
them had been eight hours en route. 

ONXY ONE TBAIN SENT OUT. 

No trains were sent out on any division by 
the Jersey Central after 8 in the morning, whea 
an accommodation was despatched to Somer- 
ville. Its fate and that of some that preceded 
it is unknown, for telegraphic communication 
was early cut off and not restored. 

At 4 o'clock ofBcial announcement was made 
that all trains had been abandoned. Up to that 
hour people came flocking across the river and 
stood in wet and shivering groups about the 
snow-covered platforms or crowded to suffoca- 
tion the waiting rooms and the restaurant. 
When it was made known that no egress could 
be had over the railroad there was a general 
rush to return to New York. A determined 
few, however, remained to occupy seats in the 
cars standing in the station until something- 
moved. 

Among these were the members of the Lily 
Clay Gayety Company bound to Reading, Pa. 
The buxom blondes and their male escorts, 
having engaged a car for their special occu- 
pancy, disposed themselves for slumber and 
passed the night as comfortably as possible un- 
der the circumstances. The members of the 
Roland Reed company, who were anxious to^ 
keep an engagement at Williamsport, Pa., re- 
turned to New York at 4 o'clock. 

LOCOMOTITES COLLIDE IN THE TAED. 

Out in the yards of the railway company the 
packed snow and ice made it impossible to 
move the switches, and the tracks were block- 
ed with locomotives and cars. The furious 
wind filled the air with flakes of snow and 
caused an accident just beyond the station. 
Passenger engine 172 and shifting engine 1 
were moving in the same direction upon con- 
verging tracks. Neither engineer saw the dan- 
ger, and the two locomotives came together 
with such force as to demolish the cab of the 
shifting engine. Charles Barber, a brakeman.. 
was standing in the cab of the shifter and was 
caught in the crushed timbers. One of his leg* 
was broken. He was brought to New York. 

NEW TOEK A MOUSE TEAP. 

The interior of the Long Island Railroad 
station at Hunter's Point resembled a scene 
in Castle Garden. Three early trains had 
brought in scores of people who found that 
they couldn't do anything after they got here, 
and, worse still, that they couldn't get back. 

The only trains that came in yesterday on 
the Lone Island Railroad system were the 
three which came over the North Side division. 
The first, which started from Whitestone 
Landing at 6:25 A. M., was onlv about 15 
minutes late. The second, which started 
from Great Neck at 5:40 A. M., got in about 45 
minutes behind time. It had but one car, 
which was packed like a sardine box. The 
third had the roughest experience. It left 
Whitestone Landing at 6:25, left College 
Point at 7:40, which was one hour and 
ten minutes late, and instead of reach- 
ing Long Island City at 6:57, did 
not get in until 4:30, "and she ain't 
here yet," said a passenger, who was relating 
his experience. The train stuck fast about a 



quarter of a mile west of the slation, and tliero 
she staved all day. Her passengers found it 
hard work to foot it to the ferry. This train 
ran into a big drift at Main street. Flushing, 
and nicks and shovels had to be used beforo 
she could proceed. About opposite the Queens 
County Court House another drift was struck, 
but the snow was light, and the engine dashed 
through it, throwing the snow back upon the 
roof of the cars, " until it was as dark as a tun- 
nel," said the passengers. 

AUSTIN COKBIN DtTG OUT. 

The trains coming in from the eastern end of 
the island did not meet the storm until they 
reached Dabylon. Austin Corbin, the Presi- 
dent of the road, who was bound west from Sag 
Harbor on the Montauk division of the road, 
found himself blockaded a few miles west of 
Babylon about 9 o'clock. A force of men was 
sent out from Jamaica.and after several hours' 
work they succeeded in freeing the road as far 
west as Jamaica, where Mr. Corbin and the 
other passengers were glad to find a refuge. 

At 5 o'clock a placard was hung up announc- 
ing that no trains would be run last night. 

The only train that left the depot yesterday 
was one which was started at 6:50 A. M, for 
Babylon. It made but two miles when the 
snow prevented further progress. Men were 
3eul out troui Hunter's Point to extricate the 
train, but their labor was unavailing. 

All telegraphic communication was shut off 
early, except along the lines to Flushing and 
Far Rockaway, " and we won't guarantee when 
or in what shape a message will reach those 
points," said the operator. 

WAIT Tllili THE CLOUDS KOLL BY. 

A railroad official, who has been on the road 
for fifteen years, said there had been no such 
blockade since the winter of 1881, when the 
road was snowed up for four days. "I never 
knew the North Side division to be blockaded 
before, though. The roads running north and 
south seem to have got more snow than those 
running east and west. We shall make no at- 
tempt to run trains until the wind and snow 
stop. It would be useless for us to try to send 
out a snow-plough and follow it by a train, 
for the tracks would fill up as fast 
as ■ they could be cleared. Why, five 
engines together were unable to push out of 
the yard this morning. Yes, this is a regular 
Western blizzard if the thermometer would 
only move down to 10° or 15° below zero. I've 
been on roads in the West, and in Minnesota 
I've seen them snowed up for two weeks. One 
winter some engines that started out on the 
prairie in January did not return until they 
were brought back on freight cars in June. 
But this is a genuine blizzard except for the 
temperature." 

Late last night it was announced that no 
fast mail could be sent out this morning, and 
that before this afternoon it would not be pos- 
sible to send out more than one mail. The 
Pennsylvania Kailroad will send out a mail 
train at 7:30 A. M. If the storm abates then 
mails will probably be sent out this evening. 

The letter carriers were dismissed by Post- 
master Pearson's order at 6 P. M., because the 
collections from the boxes were meagre and 
because the probability of mails being sent out 
this morning is slendei-. The service by mail 
wagons was discontinued in the afternoon. 
The wires between the sub-Post Offlce stations 
and the main office were down on all sides. So 
far as was heard from at a late hour one wagon 
only— that in Forsyth street— was abandoned, 
and the mails were taken from the wagon to 
the general office by letter carriers. Postmas- 
ter Pearson said last evening that the mail 
' matter collected yesterday resembled that of a 
city of 10,000 inhabitants. 

TENTING IN THE ERIE DEPOT. 

The Erie station in Jersey City was absolute- 
ly cut off from all communication with the 
outside world after 1 o'clock yesterday after- 
noon except by the ferries. These ran to both 
Chambers street and to Twenty-third street 
until 3 o'clock, making half-hourly trips. At 3 
o'clocK the Twenty-third street boats were 
taken off for lack of coal. Fifteen coal carts were 
stuck a dozen blocks away and abandoned. A 
great drift of snow across the upper end ot tne 
sheds made it impossible to move a train in or 



ont of the depot, and It also extended acros8> 
the street and stopped all pedestrian or vagoa 
traffic. . , . i, 1 

Hundreds of people got in during the eari-y 
mornlDg and many of them did not leave the 
station during the day. There were a dozen 
women among them. Nearly all of them ^vere 
shop girls who belonged either in Newark or 
Jersey City. Two of the_^ others were 
Miss Phelps, a daughter of William Walter 
Phelps, and a married lady with a baby. 
As night approached there was_ a great 
demand for sleeping accommodations. Ih© 
women who were without money were fed at 
the expense of the railroad, and a coach was 
set apart for their use. Many of the men also 
slept iii the heated coaches which had been 
standing ready all day to go out. Miss Phelps 
and the married woman and baby spent the 
night in Division Superintendent Barretts 

AfteJ 4 o'clock the ferry to Chambers street 
ran hourly until 7. The boat that made the ( 
o'clock trip struck heavy ice which_ had been 
backed up the river by the flood tide, and m 
trying to enter her slip on this side of 
the river she got caught across it and 
lay ther two hours. She was finally 
pulled around by a tug. _ She made her 
last trip from this city at 9:45 and at 10:30 she 
made the last trip back. At that hour there 
were 150 or 200 passengers left prisoners in 
the Jersey ferry houses. As early as 3 o clock 
notices had been pasted that no trains would 
be run during the day. Nothing can be don© 
toward opening the line before morning. 

PENNSTIiVANIA'S BOLITABT TKAIN STALLED, 

Only one train left the Pennsylvania depot 
in Jersey City. This was the Chicago limited. 
It went out with its usual number of pas- 
sengers at 10 A. M. All the telegraph lines had 
been gone for hours, and nothing "was heara 
from the train or about the condition of the 
road until a local train got in at 11:50. This 
brought word that the snow was piled up m 
great hard windrows across the meadows, and 
that the Chicago train was stalled at Harri- 
son's, just across the river from Newark. 
Superintendent Crawford sent out a relief tram 
to dig them out. '" We shall do nothing else. 
he said, " until the storm ends." 

Never since it was started has the Grand 
Union Hotel been so jammed with guests as it 
was yesterday. Most of the new arrivals were 
men who had gone to the Grand Central Depot 
with the expectation of taking trains for other 
points. The announcement that no trains 
would be sent out had left them disconsolate. 
After waiting for hours in the vain hope that 
the tracks would be cleared, some of them 
took cabs at exorbitant rates and the others 
betook themselves to the Grand Union Hotel. 
It took two extra clerks to get their wants at- 
tended to, and the rooms soon gave out. 
The lobbies were filled late in the afternoon 
with passengers from stalled trains on the New 
York Central and New Haven railroads who 
had succeeded in routing out farmers and had 
come down to the city in sleighs. They came 
from as far as Spuyten Duyvil, and many of 
them were sick from cold and exposure. To 
add to their distress all the rooms in the hotel 
were taken, but, fortunately, they were ac- 
quainted with many of the earlier arrivals, and 
in this way got at least a berth. Nearly all the 
beds in the house had two occupants. 

The late comers had thrilling experiences to 
relate. A party of four gentlemen were on a 
train that reached Mott Haven at noon. They 
induced John Leroy, a liveryman, to take them 
to New York in a hack-sleigh for SoO. His first 
pair of horses foundered at the end ot two 
miles, and both he and his passengers were 
nearly frozen. At a farm house along the road 
where he was acquainted he succeeded in 
getting shelter for a while and a fresh pair of 
horses. A mile further on his horses struck a 
drift, and almost^ank out of sight. They were 



extricated with diffleulty by the united efforts 
of the passengers and himself. When they 
reached the Grand Union his horses were 
trembling in every limb, and the passengers 
■\vere hardly able to move. He ^vas offered $25 
above his original price to take back another 
party, but refused the offer. 

"lam going back again," he said to the re- 
porter; " but I am going back without any pas- 
t^engers. This is the toughest trip I ever made. 
I dou't know the names of the gents that came 
down with me, but they were game all the 
way through. If they hadn't been we'd a'been 
frozen stiff on the way. They got out and 
walked a number of times when the horses 
gave out. They've got friends here who took 
care of them when they came in." 

The men did not register, and theiir names 
could not be ascertained. 

One man who said he was a lawyer and had 
been driven in from a Mott Haven train said 
that friends of his had been compelled to 
change horses four times on a similar trip. 
The roads were said to be full of drifts, many 
■>f them over seven feet deep. It is not certain 
that all who started got to the city. A passen- 
^ej- on a train that followed the express which 
met with an accident at Dobbs Ferry said that 
-ome of his fellow passengers had put up for 
the night at adjacent farm houses. 



' FREEZING ZN T3XEIR COACH. 



None of the steam roads which terminate 
at Greenwood Cemetery attempted to run 
trains yesterday, and the thousands of busi- 
ness men living along the various routes had 
to stay home. Not a day has gone by since 
Greenwood Cemetery came into existence that 
a funeral procession has not passed the big 
t,'ate at the Fifth avenue entrance. The record 
vvas kept up yesterday, but it came very near 
;ostingthe lives of two men who braved the 
storm and came all the way from Thirty- 
lifth street, New York, in coaches to 
1purv a man of the name of Hillyer. 
The procession started at 9 o'clock, and by 
31 con it had reached the entrance of the ceme- 
tery. There were only two coaches and the 
hearse, and when the cemetery was reached 
the horses as well as the drivers had almost 
Kivea out. Twenty-five men were set at work 
to dig a roadway through the huge drifts in the 
grounds to the grave, but it was found impos- 
.-ible for the horses to go further. 

The cofiQn was taken from the hearse and 
nurried to the receiving vault by half a dozen 
men. The living were then looked after. The 
imilertaker, Bernard Linus, and a son of the 
(lead man were taken from the coaches, which 
"vore being rapidly hidden from sight, and car- 
ried to Jo Braun's saloon. It took several hours 
to revive them, as they had almost succumbed 
to the blizzard. They were put to bed in a 
neighboring house. 

The hearse and coaches were abandoned and 
the horses housed at the stables of the Fifth 
Avenue Railroad. After the sheets of ice which 
</'>iilod their sides had been knocked oft' and 
they had received plenty of oats they appeared 
little the worse. Two of the drivers, Andrew 
Burns and Edward Webster, were badly frost- 
bitt(Mi, but coachmen are hard to kill, and ice 
water and a few hot drinks brought them 
around. 

The storm was more severely felt in South 
Brooklyn than in any other part of the city. 
Tclegrajih wires were down, and fences and 



treeS^ tad been laid low as well. A number ot 
stores on Fifth avenue had the panes in the 
windows blown out. It was reported in the 
afternoon that a 10-year-old boy living near 
the cemetery had left his home on an errand 
and had been lost in the snow. A search party 
was unable to find any trace of him, and he 
may have been frozen to death. On all the 
avenues the snow has drifted in some places 
to the depth of fifteen feet, and the horse car 
men do not expect to run any cars in that part 
of Brooklyn for several days. 



O O OD- B T, SLIZZARD. 



The Storm Passlnsf and tbe £levated Road 
StrnceltnK Into Motion. 

At 10 o'clock last evening- the barometer 
at the Signal Service office in the tower of the 
Equitable Building had ceased to fall. It was 
at 29.64, which was low enough, and it had not 
begun to rise. But a rise was considered cer- 
tain to be the next change, and that speedily. 
The wind gauge record showed that the wind 
had been very variable. The prevailing direc- 

' tion as well as the direction from which it came 
strongest was westerly, and the range was only 
to northwest. The greatest velocity was forty- 
eight miles an hour, and was recorded about 6 
P. M. The fall of snow was sixteen inches. The 
temperature at 10 o'clock last evening was 11° 
above having fallen more or less steadily from 
the 35° recorded twenty-four hours before. 

In the absence of any reports from any sta- 
tions south of this or from the Chief Signal 
office in Washington no proabbilities could be 
furnished. The most help in that direction 
was from Erie. Pa., and other point West, in 
the shape of reports of clear weather. This 
and the fact that at midnight the glass 
was showing a disposition to rise while 
the temperature had fallen a litte 
more, made it safe to say that the 
storm was passing off to the eastward. The 
snow-bound city was thus promised a chance 
for breaking its bonds in the morning. The 
work will be slow and difficult, unless there is 
a thaw, as the tracks and streets are buried 
under packed and frozen snow, in many places 
as solid as ice. 

At half-past 6 o'clock inspection trains were 
sent over the Third avenue line between City 
Hall and Ninety-eighth street, and on the re- 
port that switches and tracks were in good con- 
dition several trains were despatched on a few 
minutes headway from each of these 
points. It was claimed at the City Hall 
station that trains were run once in 

^ five minutes, but an actual test during 
the evening showed that the schedule was sub- 
ject to many variations. A train was sent 
northward, however, about once in every flf- 

. teen minutes. The trains consisted only of one 

. car and an engine, and the seats in the cai-s 
were covered with snow, and in some instances 
the windows wore broken out. Meantime trains 
continued to run at irregular intervals on 
Second avenue to and from Grand street. 

The Sixth avenue elevated trains which were 
snowed up at Bleecker street since yesterday 
at eight o'clock began running again at half- 
past 10 o'clock last night. The first train rolled 
by the Chambers street station last night at 
five minutes to 11 o'clock. It was followed by 

. another in twenty minutes. Then came a mes- 
sage that a train would be sent through every 
twenty minutes if possible. The next one 
came through in twenty-eight minutes. They 
were running to J.55th street. 



The City Snowed Under. 



No mails yet enter or leave the cities of 
tliis metropolis except such as they inter- 
change, and the delayed matter from stalled 
trains. Except to Newark, Paterson, and 
Jamaica, no trains have moved on the 
great railroads but such as are busy try- 
ing to clear them. Fifty trains are still 
snow bound on the approaches to New York. 
You can't telegraph or telephone in the city 
or from the city much more than you could 
on Monday. New York city itself has gone 
to work heartily to dig itself out. Suffering 
is threatened by the difficulty of hauling 
coal and by the increasing prices of food. 
The elevated roads are going, and travel 
north and south is reasonably easy. 

In New York State, outside of this city,, 
the violence of the storm exerted itself 
chiefly in the valleys of the Hudson, the 
Mohawk, and the upper Delaware rivers. 
To the' west it tapered off to Buffalo, beyond 
which it was only an ordinary snow storm. 
From Syracuse eastward-bound traffic of all 
kinds is absolutely suspended. In the Al- 
bany region the snowfall is tremendous, and 
it was stiU snowing there last night. The 
Legislature remains snowed in in sections of 
from one to fifty members at various points 
on the roads leading to Albany. 

There is a complete embargo upon railroad' 
travel between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh 
and many trains are fast in the snow. West 
of Pittsburgh trains are moving as usual 
and telegraphic service has not been inter- 
rupted. Washington, which for two daj's 
was cut off from the world, is able at last to 
use the telegraph to some extent. The 
trouble which is preventing railroad and 
telegraphic communication with the West is 
almost entirely east of Pittsburgh and Buf- 
falo. In the Northwest and Canada severe 
storms are raging, and trains north'of Lake 
Superior are blocked. 

It has been noticed in New Jersey, which 
is as closely snow bound as New York, that 
many sparrows and other birds are lying 
about dead, and it is feared there has been 
great destruction of life among game birds. 



Since Sunday morning and until this 
morning the peoDle of New York had not had 
any news to speak of except of occurrences in 
town, close by, and in the Old World. Never in 
the history of New York, since it became a 
place of universal importance, had such a state 
of affairs existed. President Cleveland might 
have died. Joe Manley might have put Blaine 
back in the field, Thomas F. Bayard might 
have repented of the fisheries treaty and 
resigned, Henry W. Grady might have re- 
canted his speech crediting the South with 
fraternal feeling toward the Yankees, and 
Winnie Davis might have been crowned Queen 



of the South. No newspaper in New York could 
have stated with any positivoness until this 
morning that these things had not occurred. 

Yesterday was the day of the shovel. If the 
City Hall had displayed a flag, and it had been 
at all truthful, it must have shown the tradi- 
tional Indians each armed with shovels. All 
the roadways were between knee deep and 
neck deep with snow, and rifts and mounds 
blocked the sidewalks. The Central Park was 
a wild waste untrespassed. and the other 
breathing places at Union and Madison and 
the other squares were merely great mounds 
of snow, fringed with ice-plated trees. 

Broadway was as white as a bridal gown, 
deep white on the roadway and sidewalks, and 
thin white where the snow had plastered all 
the windows and cornices and shutters and 
stoops. St. Paul's and Trinity recalled the 
engravings one sees of ancient Gotham, white- 
fringed and white-sprinkled, with graveyards 
blanketed with snow all around them, and 
snow-clad stones and monuments rising from 
the wintry ground. Grace Church was like a 
pastry cook's dream, and the wholly modern 
elevated roads were made as ancient looking 
as the streets by the omnipresent snow. 

Tbe new invention, which we call the Street 
Cleaning Department, made its appearance 
after twenty-four hours' absence in the form of 
a mass of grubbing, can-covered Italians, with 
shovels in hand, who cut a path along Broad- 
way, throwing the snow in two long ranges 
over either gutter, while the clerks and porters 
from the stores increased the two long piles by 
adding to them the snow off the sidewalks. 

The result of this— two long heaps of snow 
and three paths beside them— recalled to ail 
old-timers the days of the past, when the vol- 
unteer firemen ran the town, when we had no 
street-cleaning bureau, and when the snow 
was everywhere as high as men's heads. But 
in other ways things remained worse than any 
one remembered. The elevated railroads were 
the salvation of the situation so far as passen- 
ger traffic was concerned, but business re- 
mained at a standstill. In one hour, between 
10 and 11 o'clock, only nine vehicles passed in 
front of The Sun office, the busiest part of 
town, and Nassau street was only passable to 
persons on horseback, who, by the way, ^- 
peared in the most extravagant numbers ail 
over the city. 

The houses were plastered with snow, the 
shutters were frozen against the walls, the 
areas were blocked up, the stoops were the 
sites of huge drifts, the pavements were chan- 
nelled with single paths, and not a horse rail- 
road, not an express company, not a routine 
wagon business of any sort was in operation. 
Famines of half a dozen sorts threatened and 
still threaten the town. Nobody has had fresh 
milk since Monday morning, the butchers are 
asking an increase of 10 cents a pound for 
chops and steaks, many bakers' wagons are 
not running, the newsmen are divided into two 
classes, the small class that gets the papers 
and tries to deliver them, and the large clas* 



that makes no effort to do so. Eggs, meat, 
milk, bread, vegetables, newspapers, and pie 
are either hard to find, or held at a high pre- 
mium. No news in the possession of The Sun 
indicates that there may not be a famine in 
these necessities for the rest of the week. 

Women who have not set a foot out of 
doors since Saturday are to be found in every 
house, and tens of thousands of persons, un- 
able to procure the newspapers, are wondering 
about the extent of tne storm. 

New York had never seen such a quietus as 
Monday put upon it. Tuesday was worse in 
most respects, for though the elevated roads 
resumed traffic, and the big bridge kept open 
its railroad, the telegraph lines remained bro- 
ken down, the telephones were knocked out, 
the housekeepers' supplies began to run out, 
and the necessity for resuming the routine of 
life pressed with added force on most people. 

So desperate was the situation that many 
men on the elevated trains yesterday morning 
said they had been trying for twenty-four hours 
to get down town. An Evening Sun was read 
aloud at the top of the reader's voice to a ear load 
of persons on the Brooklyn elevated, ana every 
man in the car said that its news was the first 
he had heard since Sunday morning. From all 
the elevated tracks in both cities the view was 
the same— a constant repetition of thorough- 
fares in which men were shovelling ways 
from stoops and areas to sidewalks, or of streets 
where the only thoroughfare was the driveway, 
walled in by high rifts of snow. Sumner ave- 
nue, Brooklyn, was blocked by a drift that 
reached to the second tier of windows on the 
\v'est side. The drift at the corner of Hart 
street was eleven feet deep, tvventy feet wide. 
and forty feet long. The American Bank Note 
Company's building in New Church stx-eet, in 
this city, was walled out of correspondence 
with the world by a bank of snow that prevent- 
ed the manager, Mr. Lee, the only man who 
came there yesterday morning, from getting, 
in. While the elevated railroad shovelled the 
'^Tiow from its tracks into the street, that and 
the neighboring corporations banked it up on 
the curb lines. 

The snow had ceased to fall during the dark- 
ness preceding Tuesday's dawn, but Tuesday's 
daylight was accompanied by an intensely 
strong and cold wind. The horse car corpora- 
tions made no effort to run cars. One stock- 
holder said that his company would have to 
pay so much more than the daily receipts of 
$30,000 to open the road that he imagined his 
road would do nothing more than wait for a 
thaw. He said that all the companies would 
wait either for a thaw or the Street Cleaning 
Department to render their tracks fit to run on. 
He had not taken President Chauncey M. Depew 
into account. His Fourth avenue cars began 
to run on part of their route late last evening. 
On the elevated roads the trains did nearly all 
the business of taking the city's multitudes up 
and down. The cold was so intense that those 
who rubbed peep holes in the car windows 
found that a film froze over the smooth sur- 
faces faster than they could be rubbed clean. 
Whatever of the general scene of Gotham in 
the grasp of a blizzard was seen from the up- 



lifted tracks must have been viewed from the 
car platforms. 

It was all new to New Yorkers. Here were 
men tunnelling through drifts higher than 
their heads to clean the sidewalks; there were 
others shovelling their way to the wagon ways 
to get out of their houses ; elsewhere were let- 
ter carriers bawling to people in doors to come 
out over ten-foot snow heaps to get their let- 
ters. Then there were school houses, not 
open in two days, walled apart from the chil- 
dren by unsurmountable ranges of snow, parks 
that no one had entered, streets that no wagon 
could traverse, and shops whose fronts were 
fortified against their owners. 

The peopl* who ventured out were wondrous 
to see. They had on every sort of footgear con- 
ceivable. It seemed as though most men must 
have issued from the hands of their wives. 
Some had bits of waterproof around their legs, 
some had bindings of cloth, wrappings of can- 
vas, boot legs, cavalry boots in full, stockings 
over shoos and rubbers over all, fabrications 
of straw, and bindings of string to hold their 
trousers tight against their legs. As for their 
hats, there is no room to tell of the various 
sorts that appeared. 

The big bridge was the centre of interest all 
day. Toward 10 o'clock, when the trustees 
had been running one train at a time one way 
at a time to bite out small mouthfuls of the 
crowds that waited to cross, the ice in the 
river became jammed tight in a natural cause- 
way, and the bolder spirits of the two cities 
attempted to walk across from shore to shore. 
Hundreds succeeded, but suddenly, at about 11 
o'clock, the great bridge of ice cracked in sev- 
eral pieces. It left three men on one big cake 
as large as Washington square, two men each 
on cakes that seemed the size of door mats, 
and no one on the main cake that 
filled all but the edges of the river. 
Six tugs started to the rescue of these men, 
but five of the boats instantly became wedged 
and helpless in the ice. Five thousand per- 
sons watched the sixth boat with breathless 
interest. It had slow work before it. The 
wharves on the Brooklyn side became crowded 
with onlookers. The tug crawled through a 
narrow aisle of water to the big cake where 
the group of three men stood. It pushed the 
many-acre cake slowly up to the wharf, and 
the men leaped off. Then it steamed for the 
smaller cakes, now floating rapidly into the 
upper bay. As it skilfully rounded up against 
the second floating bit and rescued the last of 
the five men the thousands of men on the 
river side and the bridge yelled their applause 
in rounds of cheers and screams. 

If it were possible the town took the_storm 
too seriously, inasmuch as employers often 
reached the business places to find their hands 
not there, while in other places the employees 
came to find the bosses absent. Thousands of 
stores and offices were thus only half equipped. 

The barrooms, both up and down town, were 
exceptions. They all seemed to be packed 
from daylight until dark, and the drinkers, who 
usually adopt an excuse for their sins, asked 
one another what else was there to do, and got 
no answer sufficient to turn them to sobriety. 



FIGHTING OUR VAT AROUXO. 

The aspect of the streets up town, and down 
town as well, prepared the people lor the repe- 
tition of their troubles of transportation, and 
made them broad and comprehensive in their 
review of the situation before they took the 
leap to struggle toward office, shop, or store. 
The drifts that lined the north sides of the 
cross streets and the west sides of the avenues 
were in many places five and six feet high. 
Areas were filled up and their railings covered, 
while stoops were hidden under white mounds. 
The elTorts of the shovel brigade that was 
early put to work soon cut narrow paths along 
these sidewalks. The drifts rose higher under 
the contributions of these workers, who piled 
the many cubic yards thus removed upon the 
tops of the huge drifts at the curbs. In many 
places this resulted in huge white heaps that 
reached to the crossbars of the lamp 
posts. On the other sides of the streets 
bare spots and little drifts alternated. 
Sometimes for whole blocks, and always at one 
or more points in a block, the drifts extended 
Into the roadways. In the cross streets and 
all the narrow thoroughfares scarcely ono 
whole block was passable, and more wagons 
were soon stalled and left with those that had 
been out all night. Those who started gaily 
out with fresh horses and the comfortable con- 
sciousness J.hat the storm was over were 
speedily undeceived as to their expectations of 
getting anywhere. A block or two of travelling 
would use un the horse or horses, and one or 
two experiences of digging a way through 
drifts would use up the driver. Few of the 
many drivers of the Ninth ward (known as the 
truckman's home) even made the attempt to 
get out their teams, and those who did were 
soou obliged to relinquish it. In Charles 
street, from Fourth street to Greenwich avenue, 
the drifts were impassable even to sleighs, and 
Tenth street, in the same two blocks, were 
nearly as bad. 

FIBEMEN SHOVELLING SNOW. 

The men of 18 Engine, who had been nearly 
frozen to death in a night run, restored the 
circulation of their blood by clearing a way 
from their quarters to Sixth avenue. Their 
engine had got stuck, despite its four horses. 
at the corner of Greenwich avenue on Monday 
evening, 150 feet from the engine house door. 
The boys improvised a snow plough and broke 
paths out to the avenue, using their shovels 
to reenforce the work of the plough and their 
best horse. 

SLEIGHING BREAKS LOOSE. 

Broadway was filled with a lively parade of 
vehicles and sleighs. Cutters, Eussian sledges, 
and sleighs of all sorts were in the line. One 
or two four-in-hand livery sleighs were char- 
tered in Harlem originally, and remained to do 
a little Broadway railrouding at good figures. 
The plumed sleighs and horses were the 
swellest things out. Altogether it was a sight 
that Broadway has very seldom seen, and one 
that the laying of tracks there was supposed 
to have put an end to forever. Carriages and 
coup(5s were there, too, and seemed to suit 
those of rheumatic tendencies or delicate 
build, though their progress was heavy and 
lumbering as compared with the gliding, 
speedy sleighs. 

GOOD ENOUGH FOOT GOING IN SPOTS. 

Pedestrians were plenty. Their experience 
as compared with that of the previous morn- 
ing was pleasant. The air was sharper, but 
the going had improved. Even where the side- 
walks had not been thoroughly cleaned a path 
had been beaten by the tramp of hundreds of 
feet, andfthe laborious tugging of the Monday 
morning's walk was replaced by something of 
springiness and sprightliness. The air was 
more bracing, and the absence of flyipg clouds 



or snowy particles fine as fog made the trip a 
great deal pleasanter. There was not the 
further danger of missing lormeriv familiar 
landmarks or getting sufficiently bewildered to 
look for Bleeckor street in the neighborhood of 
Canal or similar incongruities. 

THE PROPER CAPER IN CLOTHES. 

As has already been intimated, many men, 
on weighing it up, decided not to venture out. 
Those who did go out knew what they were 
going into, and prepared for it more than they 
iiad the day before. A soft hat tied down over 
the ears with a handkerchief was a prevailing 
mode, and coarse packing cord tioil tightly 
about the trousers at the ankle was the correct 
caper in west side high lite. A few extremists, 
who sported rubber boots to their knees, were 
scorned as dudes. Coarse bagging or brown 
packing paper tied about the feet and legs was 
good enough for ordinary folks, like grocers' 
boys and butchers' assistants. There seemed 
to be no generally recognized fashion for la- 
dies' outdoor wear. A gossamer coat, with the 
hood drawn close, and a peaked expression of 
countenance, were the observable features of 
most female costumes. 

SLEDDING FOR COAL. 

The attempts at doing business were not 
largely productive, and in the especial and nec- 
essary matter of getting provisions and coal 
the only real progress was made. Coal in 100- 
pound bags was in very limited supply in some 
neighborhoods. A west side coal man drew 
them to his customers on a home-made sledge, 
built on the pattern of an old-fashioned stone 
boat out of packing box stuff. Others sent 
them out by hand, or rather on the stout 
shoulders of men whose pay brought the cost 
of the coal up to double or more than double 
its usual price. Toward evening the pressure for 
a coal supply became so strong that the lum- 
bering coal carts were brought out. and with 
half a load and a tandem team made to do 
what little could be done to help out. 

PROVISIONS IN GREAT DEMAND. 

The marketing made necessary by the three 
days' havoc in Saturday's supply was very un- 
satisfactory work. The retailers, whose base 
of supplies is Washington Market, were unable 
to replenish their stocks, and their customers 
were in turn deprived of the opportunity to 
store their larders. Down town the hotels and 
restaurants were better off. Strong men and 
capacious baskets did the business there, and 
with some exceptions— like Currier's, where 
the coal was out, and the Press Club, whose 
cook was snowbound at home— the regular cus- 
tomers fared pretty well. The efforts to do 
business around the market were vigorous to 
the verge of heroic. Seaman Lichtenstein & 
Son paid $100 to get a load of produce up town 
to some of their hotel customers. 

IMPROVISED A BIG SLED. 

But the boss job of pushing was done by 
Alexander Powell of Drahan & Powell. Their 
business is with Southern hotels, like the Ponce 
de Leon and other $8 a day houses. The 
idea that these houses were to feel the effects 
of the blizzard was not to be thought of. 
The people pay those figures to get away from 
such things. Mr. Powell wanted to get 250 
barrels of meat, poultry, and other provisions 
aboard the steamer. Trucks were out of the 
question, A double truck loaded with ten bar- 
rels and harnessed to four horses was as im- 
movable as the hills. Something had to be 
done. Sleighs were sought in vain. At 7 
o'clock in the morning Mr. Powell hunted up 
a down-town wheelwright and gave him an or- 
der to build a sleigh. He did not care for finish 
or shad runners or anything except strength 
and to get it quickly. At 1 o'clock in the after- 
noon the sleigh was delivered in front of his 
store, and, after getting his stuff down to the 
boat, Mr. Powell let his neighbors use the 
rough, unpainted, but very serviceable sleigh. 

NO MAILS. EXCEPT FROM STALLED TRAINS. 

Postmaster Pearson rose from a night's rest 
on his office sofa to a day of masterly inactivity. 
It was not his fault or that of his men, and they 
took no comfort in the fact that there was little 
for them to do. They knew too well that the 
day of reckoning was at handi and that an aval- 



atiche of mail mat>r would tax tlielr every re- 
source when the (.lelayed trains should arrive, 
and no one knew when that would be. in 
the mean timeithe collectors, without refer- 
ence to schedule time, kept the lamp-post 
boxes clear, and the carriers also, in disregard 
of the deliveries on the card, distributed the 
light local mails sifted from the result of the 
collectors' trips. Biisiness was at such a stand- 
still that the street boxes did not furnish 
much material. And the difficulty of hauling, 
with the certainty that no mails were being 
sent out. made publishers and others slow in 
sending big loads in. It would have made 
little difference if they had, as the Post 
Office people would simply have stowed the 
stufT away. Monday morning's newspapers and 
those of yesterday were held there, and they 
made the bulk ot the matter on hand. Com- 
munication with the local branches was rees- 
tablished yesterday, but this did not involve 
much increase in the volume of busines/ Mr. 
Pearson was rather more sanguine than som» 
of his men about the rush expected from the 
incoming trains. In fact, he did not expect any 
rush, calculating upon their arrival at inter- 
vals, which would enable the clerks and car- 
riers to get their mails out of the way easily. 

THE BIG DEIFTS PHOTOGBAPHED, 

The fact that the city never saw such an 
experience before since it was a metropolis, 
and the reasonable supposition that many 
years will intervene before the experience will 
he repeated, appealed at once to the knights of 
the camera. Amateurs and professionals alike 
got their instruments to bear on choice bits of 
blizzard scenery as soon as the light was suffi- 
cient for their purpose. Broadway. Union, and 
Madison squares were especially favored by the 
picture takers. The preservation of some of 
the storm effects by the truth telling photog- 
rapher will be a blessing to the future story 
teller who recounts his storm experiences to 
those who saw none of it. The evidence thus 
brought to bear cannot be gainsaid, and in no 
other way perhaps could those who did not 
have a share in these experiences be made to 
appreciate the situation as it was when yester- 
day morning dawned. And after a few days of 
good solar printing weather has enabled these 
artists to finish some pictures the windows of 
the photograph sellers will blossom with some 
of the mos t interesting things they have ever 
shown. 

HACKS IN NOEMAL DEMAND. 

The gilt edge was taken off the hack-driving 
business by yesterday afternoon, and two 
blanketed teams stood in front of the Astor 
House in peace yesterday afternoon at an hour 
when the contest for them was greatest the day 
before. The V's and X's were not flying around 
in the plenty of the storm's harvest day, and 
the carrying capacity of the nimble nickel was 
again asserting itself. The drivers who were 
on runners kept a little of the fat that had 
gladdened the fraternity on Monday, but the 
average New Yorker is not sufficiently inured 
to the chill delights of facing the breeze in an 
open sleigh to make the demand for sleigh 
rides up town very strong. 

Women were rather more plenty in the streets 
than on Monday, and they got along a great 
deal better. They attracted a great deal of at- 
tention, and deserved it, for rosy is but a poor 
term to describe their complexions, and 
sparkling is only a weak word to indicate the 
brightness of their eyes. 

PLENTY or WOKK FOB MEN. 

The amount of snow to be shovelled from 
sidewalks and tracks is sufficient to furnish oc- 
cupation for thousands of men. who will find 
In the opportunity to make some ready money 
a mitigation of the otherwise adverse circum- 
stances of the storm. Shovels were in great 
demand, and a run on the hardware stores 
was begun early. The impossibility of having 
orders to wholesalers or jobbers filled made the 
retailers wary, and in mobt cases the prices 
were gently lifted. A good margin of profit is 
looked for in most of the articles that the re- 
tailer deals in, but as a rule shovels are not 
among them. Yesterday it was different, and 
fifty per cent, was the least that would satisfy 
many of the dealers. 



Wall street is still in the grip of the bliz- 
zard. This was demonstrated in a very pro- 
nounced way yesterday when only 1,800 shares 
of stocks were dealt in on the Stock Exchange. 
Between 10 o'clock and noon, when the Ex- 
change adjourned, half a hundred brokers, 
most of them governors, wandered over the 
echoing floor of the great Board room. Most 
of those on hand hadn't been home over night. 
Some slept in their offices and others were 
packed four in a room in down-town hotels. 
There was a dreary effort by some of the al- 
leged wits to make things pleasant. Half a 
dozen played " one-old-cat," the base ball 
game in their boyhood games. The Governors 
saw how things were running and decided to 
exercise some of the absolute prerogatives 
with which their fellow members have en- 
dowed them. They closed the Exchange at 
noon. Deliveries of stocks and loan accom- 
modations were again extended twenty-four 
hours, but unless telegraphic communication is 
established to-day with other speculative cen- 
tres there will doubtless be another dreary time, 
followed by a half holiday more effective than 
the one established by the Albany fraternity. 

At the Sub-Treasury one-third of the clerks 
from Jersey towns and the upper New York 
districts were absent. Cashier William Sherer 
lives in the outskirts of Brooklyn. He is 50' 
years old. On Monday and yesterday he walked 
the eight miles necessary to attend to his duties 
and get home again, besides lugging a well- 
dressed individual on Monday night through 
one mile of snow drifts to shelter. The well- 
dressed person had attempted to get square oa 
the blizzard by the help of alcohol, and was in- 
different about going home at all. 

All day amateur photographers f ocussed their 
cameras on Washington's statue on the Sub- 
Treasury steps, A professional secured a nega- 
tive for Harper's Weekly. The statue is coated, 
with icy sleet, and is topped by a white head 
dress of the shape of the hats worn by King: 
George's men a hundred years ago. The snow 
has settled on the shoulders of the statue up to 
the ears, so that the stoop-shouldered and medi- 
tative manner of the first Napoleon nre por- 
trayed. It is a curious combination Jiat the 
blizzard has thrust on the first President of th» 
republic. 

The Cotton and Coffee Exchanges didn't open, 
their doors at all; the Produce adjourned at 
noon after a sorry and slimly attended session %. 
the Consolidated Exchange followed suit at 1 
o'clock, and the Custom House, although most 
of the prominent officials were on hand, was 
dull as on Sundays. 

The Produce Exchange men, in addition ta 
being cut off from the outside world, are also 
up a stump because the manager of the Prod- 
uce Exchange Safe and Deposit Company 
hasn't been able to get to town from his horn© 
in Jersey since Saturday night. The securities 
and certificates required by the grain and 
other men are locked up in the vaults. ,^^. 

The down-town end of the blizzard, taken as 
a whole, is about as successful as anv, and 
until the telegraph wires can be patched and 
rigged very little business can be done. 

yO MILK AND ZTTTLB COAL. 



Mutton, ribs of beef, and other solidities 
were quoted at an advance of two to four cents 
the pound yesterday at the fountain heads of 
retail distribution. Up-town butchers soon 
doubled Washington Market prices for their 
customers, and, though there was some grum- 
bling, their exactions were submitted to. There 
is meat enough within reach to last a week, it 
is said, but after that time the dealers predict 
that their picnic will begin. The dealers of 
Washington Market say that they experienced 
no difficulty yesterday in transporting meat to 
all parts of the city. They held themselves 
out as ready and able to fill all orders. 



Notwithstanding their assertions, however, 
the spectacle of wagons laden with meat strug- 
gling in vain with the ruts of snow constantly 
recurred. One novel means of transporation 
was to hang great haunches of meat over the 
back of a horse and get up town without the 
dangers atteiKhint upi.ntho haulingof awagon. 

Ihe milk situation is declared to be simply 
appalling Not a car load of milk arrived here 
yesterday. Fifty cents was refused for a glass 
of milk in a down-town restaurant yesterday. 
As the situation became known most of the 
restaurants refused to sell milk as a beverage. 
Later in the day this was the universallv 
adopted rule. No milk was dispensed except 
with coffee. 

In the up-town districts not only was it im- 
possible in some cases to get any milk, but 
even bread was out of the rjuestion. The milk- 
man, of course, was not, and the spec- 
tacle of innumerable journeys to the corner 
grocery or the neighboring dairy was in many 
instances touching, because it yielded no re- 
sults to anxious mothers or distressed house- 
wives- 

The poor, who are accustomed to buy their 
milk in small quantities at the grocers', were 
greatly distressed by the famine. The grocers 
had no milk, and so these unfortunates were 
forced to do without. This privation, however, 
could easily have been endured, but the scarcity 
of coal at all the places where thev have been 
accustomed to buy it by the pailful added a 
new peril to their condition. Hauling coal was 
hardly attempted yesterday, and the existing 
supply at these groceries was exhausted yes- 
terday in many quarters. 

Crowds of women and children brought tin 
and patent pails for a little coal, and in many 
places so great was the demand that police- 
men were stationed at the groceries to prevent 
the people from storming the coal bins. For a 
" patent" pail full of coal sixty cents was 
charged, and when a poor woman demurred at 
the price she was told that the supply was low 
and that if she would not pay the price others 
would quickly do so. A patent pail contains 
twelve quarts. The supply of coal in many 
grocery stores was exhausted even at this ex- 
orbitant chari,'e. and cards were posted in the 
windows like this: 

: COAL ALL OUT. • 

; NO COAL SOLD. ; 

Women, bareheaded and scantily clothed, 
dragging shivering children at their heels and 
carrying little tin pails with them, burst into 
tears on reading the placards, and turned away 
to pursue too often an equally fruitless search 
at other stores. 

A horse hitched to a coal cart broke down 
while the blizzard was at its height at the cor- 
ner of Thirteenth street and First avenue. 
Several hundred men and women whose faces 
blocked the windows of the big tenements in 
the street saw the driver jump from the cart 
and unhitch his horses in despair. In another 
instant fully 100 women and girls with pails 
and baskets and tin cans were swarmed 
around. the coal cart clamoring for the coal. 
In less than five minutes it was all sold. The 
load bi ought over $7. 



FOUND HEAD AND BURIED IN SNOW. 

One of those places in the city in which 
the great storm spent its wildest fury was in 
Seventh avenue, between Fiftieth street and 
Central Park. The thoroughfare here is on 
rising groundVand the wind gets a great sweep 
at it through th© broad street openings. Police- 
men who were sent out to patrol it on Monday 
shrunk, shivering and bewildered, into^ the 
doorways, and were almost frozen fast there. 
The men around the Broadway street car line 
stables at Fiftieth street were almost terrified 
at the storm, and were as solemn in the stables 
as if they were on strike. To a Sun reporter 
who looked up the street yesterday it seemed, 



with its sidewalks half shoveUed, and with 
carts and wagons of all sorts and descriptions 
lying abandoned in the road, like a picture of 
as utter desolation as New-York is ever likely 
to present. The Sixth avenue elevated cars, 
pulling at intervals through Fifty-third street, 
were the only things that made it seem likely 
that anybody lived around there at all. 

At a quarter to 5 o'clock yesterdav morning, 
as Policeman Henry Haag of the West Forty- 
seventh street station struggled up Seventh 
avenue, right under the elevated tracks at Fif- 
ty-third street he saw a man's arm and hand 
sticking out of the snow in the middle of the 
road, just in front of him. The policeman 
kicked the snow away and discovered the 
man's body. The man was frozen dead and 
had evidently lain there for hour.s. He waa 
well dressed and there was a gold watch chaia 
across his breast. The hand that was stretched 
out of the snow had the fingers wide apart. 
The policeman pulled the body out of the snow 
to its full length, and then tramped back to 
Captain Killilea's station house for help. 

When they examined the man's clothes at the 
station house they found, besides the gold chain 
and watch and a small amount of money in 
currency, letters addressed: 

: Mr. George D. B.iRKHORK, : 

: The Osborne Klalg. : 

: 205 West 57th street, : 

: New York. 

A policeman who knew Mr. George D. Bare- 
more, a wealthy hop dealer, when that gentle- 
man lived at the Dakota Flats, identified the 
body, and word was sent to Mr. Baremore's 
family at the Osborne. 

Mr. Bnreraore's wife and two little boys had 
eat up all night, waiting for him to come homo. 
Mrs. Baremore asked the oflicer to notifv lier 
husband's brother Henry, at 324 West Fifty- 
seventh street, and the officer did so. Mr. 
Henry Baremore went to the station house and 
identified his brother's body, and it was taken 
home. Death was caused by freezing. 
CHARGE OF THE SUOVEL BRIGADE. 

Mayor Hewitt got down to his office at 11 
o'clock yesterday morning. Ho came down 
from Twenty-third street ia a Third avenue 
elevated train, and got pretty well squeezed on 
the way. He was deeply impressed with the 
emergency created by the storm, and had busy 
conferences all day with the heads of depart- 
ments, with a view to clean and protect the city. 

Chief Shay of the Fire Department came 
down and urged that, as a measure of protec- 
tion from flre, leading thoroughfares should be 
promptly cleaned. 

The Mayor had a conference with Street Com- 
missioner Coleman, who said he had made all 
possible arrangements to get the streets clean. 
That he had required the contractors to keep 
up their full force of men, and had hired all the 
extra carts he could get. Commissioner Cole- 
man urged that in this emergency the restrict- 
ed dumjiing grounds are not sufiBcient. The 
Docks Department rules require snow to be 
dumped from the ends of the piers at wide in- 
tervals apart. The Mayor wrot'" a letter urging 
the Dock Commissioners to su; lend the rules 
for this emergency, and to permit the snow to 
be dumped from any bulkhead. Mr. Coleman 
took the letter over to the Dock Department to 
get the required permission. 

The Street Department stables are at Seven- 
teenth street and Avenue C. The force were at 
once ordered to work its way to Broadway and 
clear Broadwfvy as quick as jiossible. clear- 
ing first the side streets leading to the ferries. 
All the men and.carts that could be hired were 
at once put on. 

A committee of merchants ofTered to clean 
Ferry, (iold. Spruce, and Jacob streets, and 
their offer was accepted. 

Orders were issued to clear the snow first 
from the vicinity of all the fire hydrants. Be- 
fore nieht tbare were about a. thousand men 



ana c^rts at' work on Broadway and side 
streets; ' 

Mayor Hewitt sent a message to Inspector 
Williams last night requesting him to notify 
the police throughout the city not to interfere 
with the dumping of snow from piers other 
than those usually used by the Street Cleaning 
Deiiartmont. The Mayor deemed this neces- 
sary in order to facilitate the cleaning of the 
streets for the resumption of traffic. 

General Manager Hain of the Manhattan 
Elevated Railroad Company passed the after- 
noon of Monday.'and neai'ly all of the night in 
the station 'at Sixth avenue and Pifty-eight 
street, where he directed the work of clearing 
the tracks and relieving the blockade. The 
superintendent was similarly engaged at 
South Ferry. Shortly after midnight traffic 
was resumed on Sixth avenue with two-car 
trains at irregular intervals from the southern 
terminus to 155th street. All through the early 
morning elevated traiHc was limited to two-car 
through trains on Sixth avenue, one car trains 
from City Hall to Ninety-eighth|street and re- 
turn on Third avenue, and occasional trains 
from Grand street to the northern terminus 
and return on Second avenue. 

By daybreak, when the patronage of all the 
lines increases suddenly, trains were despatch- 
ed more frequently on all lines, except 
Ninth avenue, the south of Fifty-ninth 
street, where employees were still at 
work clearing off the tracks. Before 9 o'clock 
two-car trains were run up and down this line 
at intervals of eight minutes, and, as the day 
advanced, the operations of the road improved 
steadily. It was not until late in the afternoon, 
however, that full length trains were running 
with regularity on the west side divisions. 

The Third avenue line was soonest put in 
running order, and all day yesterday it fur- 
nished the best facilities for transportation in 
the city. Two-car and three-car, and finally 
four-car trains ran at nearly regular intervals 
of six minutes from City Hall to 129th street 
and return. It is probable that longer trains 
might have been made up had there been men 
enough to run them. Many of the day force of 
engineers, firemen, conductors, guards, and 
station men worked straight through the night, 
because the night men could not get to their 
work. Other day men had to walk many miles 
to reach the roads, and some who lived in for- 
eign parts, reached only by ferryboats, could 
not report for duty at all. 

The last part of the elevated roads to be 
cleared and opened for traffic was the mile of 
crooked track from Chatham square to South 
Ferry. When this was finally cleared away it 
was impracticable to run trains on that section 
at the usual speed, for the tracks were slippery 
and snow was being blown upon them con- 
tinuously. 

The express trains from 155th street to Cort- 
landt street, via Ninth avenue, did not run yes- 
terday morning, and the return trips were 
omitted in the afternoon. This was because 
the demand which these trains usually supply 
did not exist. They are run primarily for the 
accommodation of patrons of the New York 
City and Northern Railroad, which crosses the 
Harlem to 155th street, and sends its passen- 
gers down town over the elevated road. The 
express trains make close connection with 
trains from and to the north, but since Satur- 
day there have been no trains to connect with. 
Several south-bound trains on the Northern 
were stalled early Monday morning, and there 
they are yet. Not one has reached the city. 

A desperate effort was made on Monday to 
force a way through the drifts, but nothing 
was done yesterday but patient shovelling. 
Passengers were imprisoned in the cars for 
many hours on Monday, and it is not certainly 
known that any of them reached the city; but 
when the company abandoned Its attempts to 
move trains every effort was made to 
care for the passengers. The high- 
ways in the country are blocked by drifts 
and almost impassable, but by yesterday morn- 
ing the company had emptied all of its stalled 
trains. It Is said that some of thQ.passepger9 



were cared for at houses near by, ana tnat 
others vi'ere enabled to reach their homes. 
There is little information in the city as to the 
progress the Northern people have made in 
clearing their tracks, but there is some hope 
that trains may be run to the city this morn- 
ing, barring delays from a new snow storm. 

"We died the hardest of any of 'em," 
said Superintendent Newell of the Broadway 
and Seventh avenue street car line "And," 
said the superintendent, " we're coming to life 
as soon as any of 'em, but no one can tell when 
that's going to be. Of course we shan't run 
any cars to-day, and probably not to-morrow, 
either. I have about 250 men out shovelling 
to-day, 75 of whom are Italians and men who 
wanted a job. The rest are some of our con- 
ductors and drivers." 

The superintendent had a good many more 
men than 250 at work early in the morning. 
Each of the newly-hired workers was to get 
$1.25 for his Jay's work. Pretty soon the po- 
lice came around with stern notifications to the 
occupants of buildings to clean off their side- 
walks immediately. The laborei's found their 
services at a premium, and in a great many 
cases they left the street car tracks for the 
more lucrative task of cleaning the sidewalks. 
The slush which formed on the tracks at the 
beginning of the blizzard was frozen, of course, 
and was to be dug away with pickaxes. It does 
not seem as if cars could be running the length 
of Broadway these three days, though superin- 
tendent Newell says, he has 1,000 men prom- 
ised him for to-day. The workers yesterday 
only cleared the tracks of the drifts between 
Thirty-eighth and Forty-ninth streets. The 
The worst drifts upon the Broadway track are 
at Union and Madison squares, and near Fif- 
tieth street. The Broadway road has two cars 
snowed in, one at Bowling Green and the other 
between Eighth and Ninth streets. The Sev- 
enth avenue cars are all in. 

At 6 o'clock yesterday morning Superin- 
tendent Moore of the Sixth avenue surface 
railroad left the road stables, at the corner of 
Forty-fourth street and Sixth avenue, with a 
corps of three hundred workers armed with 
pickaxes and shovels. The workers comprised 
nearly all the drivers and conductors of the 
road and Italians and other chance laborers. 
The men were distributed from Vesey to Fifty- 
ninth street, and they went to work shovelling 
snow with a will. Particular attention was paid 
to the Sixth avenue part of the road from Car- 
mine street up. Before the day was done the 
upper part of the avenue was cleared of the 
drifts, but the tracks were still clogged with 
ice so that car locomotion over them was im- 
possible. It will require four or five trips of 
the sweeper over the tracks after the ice is off 
before the cars can be run. Superintendent 
Moore said that if there was no more blizzard 
he hoped to start cars this morning. 

The Third Avenue Horse Car Company had 
500 men at work yesterday clearing the tracks. 
They were put to work early, and many were 
kept at it during the night. Snow ploughs and 
sweepers were useless. "I have been in this 
business," said Vice-President Hart, " since 
there was a horse car, and 1 never before knew 
it to be necessary to use picks on the road. But 
we had to get picks to-day, and we couldn't get 
along without them. The great trouble is with 
the ice which formed on the rails when the first 
snow fell on top of the rain on Sunday night." 

Several of the horses were badly strained be- 
fore the running of the cars was given up, but 
none was lost. Half a dozen cars were stalled, 
all but one of which had been brought back to 
The stables at Sixty-sixth street by 3 o'clock 
P. M. 

The Harlem Cable road, which is a part of 
the Third avenue system, had four cars run- 
ning Monday, but none yesterday. There was 
no trouble with the cable itself. No attempt 
was made to start a horse car yesterday. The 
Second avenue horse car line started oht to 
clear the tracks from the stables at Ninety- 



«lxtli streef southward. About 250 men were 
at work with shovels. The company means to 
start the cars as soon as it can clear the tracks 
•down to Houston street. Fifteen cars were 
.started yesterday, and only three could be ex- 
tricated. AVork on the track was continued 
during the night. 

Fourth avenue horse cars were out last night, 
and were carrying passengors on a portion of 
the road, from the dejiot to below Twenty-third 
street. People cheered them as they went. 



JiOSCOE CONKUNG XEARLT DEAD. 



Koscoe ConJiling said yesterday that he 
liad a pretty tough constitution and had been 
in some pretty tight places in his life, but that 
he had never found himself as far gone physi- 
cally as on Monday night in Union square. 

" I had been at the Stewart building in the 
afternoon," he said, " and had some work to do 
in my office, and not thinking that the city 
would be dark at night I went down to Wall 
street to look after the work. A little after 6 
o'clock I wanted to go home. There wasn't a 
cab or carriage of any kind to be had. Once 
during the day I had declined an oft'er to ride 
up town in a carriage, because the man wanted 
$50, and I started up Broadway on my pins. It 
was dark, and it was useless to try to pick out 
a path, so I went magnificently along shoulder- 
ing through drifts, ana headed forthe north. I 
WHS pretty well exhausted when I got to Union 
SQuare, and, wiping the snow from my eyes, 
tried to make out the triangles there. But it 
was impossible. There was no light, and I 
plunged right through on as straight a line as 
1 could determine upon. 

"Sometimes I have run across passages in 
novels of great adventures in snow storms; for 
example, in stories of Kussian life, where there 
would be a vivid description of a man's strug- 
gle on a snow-swept and windy plain; but I 
have always considered the presentation an 
exaggeration. I shall never say so again, lor 
after what I encountered in last night's bliz- 
zard I can believe that the strongest descrip- 
tion would fail to approximate the truth. 

"I had got to the middle of the park and was 
up to my arms in a drift. I pulled the ice and 
snow from- my eyes an<l held my hands up there 
till everything was melted otT so that 1 might 
see; but it was too dark and the snow too 
'blinding. For nearly twenty minutes I was 
stuck there, and I came as near giving right up 
and sinking down there to die as a man can and 
not do it. Somehow I got out and made my 
way along. When I reached the New York Club 
at Twenty-fifth street I was covered all over 
with ice and packed snow, and they would 
scarcely believe me that I had walked from 
Wall street. It took three hours to make the 
journey." 

Trains on the Brooklyn Bridge ran all 
Monday night, and until 7 A. M. yesterday trav- 
ellers found no difficulty in crossing the river. 
Then the usual rush of Brooklynites to get to 
the metropolis began, and although no surface 
■cars were running yet the Brooklyn elevated 
railroad supplied enough passengers, with 
those who made their way to the bridge on 
foot, to cause a jam at the bridge entrance. 
Sands street before 8 A. M. was filled from curb 
to curb with a pushing and struggling, but 
good-natured mass of human beings— mostly 
men, but a good many women. 

The cable was not used, partly because the 
bearing wheels on the bridge were frozen stiff 
■and partly because Superintendent Martin 
•deemed it unwise to use the grip on account of 
the accumulation of snow and ice. The same 
prudence also governed the counsels of the 
tnanagers in regard to the ^number of trains 



permitted on the bridge. Only one train at a 
time was allowed to burden the structure. As 
soon as one train arrived on one track another 
was started from the other track. In this way 
it was possible to divide the crowds, sending 
the passengers for ton minutes up the north 
stairway and in the next ten minutes up the 
south stairway. Trains of throe cars and two 
engines were run. 

This arrangement, however, while the neces- 
sity existed of sending passengers up first one 
and then the othnr stairway, was not suOiciontl 
to relieve the pressure at the one ticket onice. 

An arrangomtint adopted to send passengersi 
through the ticket office to the south platform 
caused a rush in that direction. The rush up] 
the stairway was prevented by a rope stretchedi 
across the promenade from the south side to 
the ticket office on the north side, and fourl 
policemen stood on guard to prevent the crowd 
from breaking through. Then the crowd turned 
lo the ticket office and performed a letter S in' 
winding through the ticket office across the' 
promenade to tho south platform. 

Still the crowd in Sands street grew and in- 
creased, and f!n;illy to relievo the pressure the' 
south roadway was thrown open to pedestrians.' 
Thousanils walked to New lork in the road-' 
way. Grown men frolicked like kittens and 
ran races. Eight young men procured a ropei 
from somewhere and tied themselves to it at' 
intervals and trotted across the bridge, pre- 
tending that they were enduring the perils of 
an ascent of the Alps. There was no need for 
their precaution. 

Shortly after 11 o'clock a force of seventy-flve 
men was put to work cleaning the promenade 
of ice and snow, and it was thrown open tol 
pedestrians. This, with the throwing open of' 
the roadway, relieved the pressure at Sands' 
street, and at noon bridge travel resumed its 
usual aspect. 

Four-car trains, with two locomotives— one to, 
push and the other to pull— kept the public un- 
der way across the bridge all day after 12 
o'clock. 

Of thirty bridge policemen who should have 
reported for duty earlv yesterday morning] 
only eighteen appeared at the Sands street 
bridge police station, and at 8 A. M. twenty of' 
the entire platoon reported for duty. ThisI 
compelled policemen who had been on duty, 
during the first of the storm to remain at their; 
post. Several pedestrians who stole their way 
on the bridge unobserved were found during, 
the night on Monday in a half-dazed condition, 
and were taken to the tower stations, rubbed, 
and escorted to land. 

In the afternoon the last car of a three-car, 
train arriving in New York, after unloadingl 
passengers, jumped the track at a switch, andi 
travel was delayed for half an hour. 

CAMfiyG IX THE HOTELS. 



Bank Clerks l->odi;ed Don-n To'n'n In Bulk 
— 15 lu One Room. 

The clerk at the Astor House says he never 
saw anything like the jam of Monday night. 
Most of the guests wore business men and de- 
sirable patrons, but more than a thousand had 
to be turned away. One lady came in about 8 
o'clock and, after putting up with chair accom- 
modations for several hours, she was provided 
with a roomy bath room and finished the night 
there. She was very grateful next morning| 
for the accommodation and left for Brooklyn. 
Two hundred cots were put up in the parlors 
and halls, and even the chairs were grabbed 
up eagerly, and a well-situated chair with armsi 
readily commanded quite a handsome pre-; 
mium. Men offered as high as $25 for a room. 
An absent-minded stranger raised a laugh byi 
asking, in a set way. for a pleasant room with a 
warm, sunny exposure. The clerks gave up 
their rooms to the suffering public. The Han- 
over Bank had fifteen employees in one roona, 
which was doubling up with a vengeance. 

Other down-town hotels had a similar experi- 



ence. Clork Haines, at the Cosmopolitan, dis- 
played eight pages of the big register filled with 
the names of refugees who stopped atcthe 
house Monday night. Many of the names 
were written in pencil, and were evidently 
traced by fingers that trembled with cold. The 
hotel accommodates 400 guests, and double 
that number were turned away. Rooms were 
rented at the usual rates, although large pre- 
miums were offered for them. Cots were put 
in every available place, and the proprietor 
eave up his private parlor. Sofas readily 
brought a good price. At the International, 
when rooms and cots gave out, people took to 
the chairs in the lobby, and slept there as best 
they could. Forty employees of the Importers' 
and Traders' Bank spent the night there. 

French's'Hotel has accommodations for about 
200 people, and nearly 400 slept there. Many 
of the rooms utilized were hardly habitable, 
and one man who got a room early in the day 
and©went to it late at night found there 
merely a bedstead with three slats across it, 
and nothing more. It amounted to sleeping.' 
on the floor, and he objected. The hall boy tool. 
him to another room where there was a bed 
with a mattress. The porter got him a single 
sheet for covering, and he went to bed under 
this, wearing his overcoat and merely remov- 
ing his hat and boots. 



Snow Bound on bis Own Doorstep. 

An unfortunate man who lives in one of 
the houses that sit far back from the walk on 
the south side of Fifty-third street, near Sev- 
enth avenue, when he got within sight of 
home late Monday afternoon, found a drift as 
high as his head covering all his sidewalk. He 
attacked it valiantly, and was buried at the 
third step. He floundered out and stood off 
away to consider the situation. Then he tried 
to flank the drift by hugging the fence, which 
was of iron and very cold. While he was 
wrestling with the fence his wife saw him from 
the window. She threw it up and with the 
children stood there shouting shrill encourage- 
ment to the man. Thus inspired he put new 
life into his struggle, and got himself two feet 
deeper into the drift. The neighbors came to 
their windows and looked on, too. Finally he 
backed out and held a consultation with his 
wife as to the aspect of affairs. At her sugges- 
tion he climbed the fence into a neighbor's 
yard, and then climbed the neighbor's fence 
into his own and so finally got into the bosom 
of his family. 

HUNDREDS CHOSS 02V FOOT FROM THIS 
CITT TO BROOKLYN. 



A. Score ot Foolhardy Men Canarht Tehen the 
Ice went Out— Ihree Kescued with I>iffi> 
cnlty — All Travel by Boat Stopped. 

The rising tide bore up from the bay yes- 
terday morning a huge field of ice. It wafted it 
past the Battery before the sun was due, and 
shot it up the East River. The lower ferries 
saw it coming, and did not attempt to put out 
any boats. It was Avider than the river, and 
longer than it was wide. When it got up as far 
as Burling slip on this side it stuck. The edge 
scraped the Mallory steamship dock, and 
twisted several piles out of position. At Fulton 
ferry, just above, it caught fast, shutting in the 
slips, and jamming hard against the next pier 
above where the Black Ball clippers dock. A 
long extension of ice shut out traffic almost 
up to the Brooklyn Bridge. At the same mo- 
ment the eastern edge, which jutted far ahead 
of the New York side of the floe, caught oppo- 
site Fulton Ferry. It jammed into the docks 
for nearly a mile south, shutting in the stores 
from Martin's to Roberts's. ^ A point ran north- 
ward from the centre just under the shadow 
of the big bridge. Southward another point 



reached nearly to Governor's Island. It wa» 
an enormous ice field of many hundred acres 
and old salts had to go back a dozen years to 
recall its equal. 

All this was before 8 o'clock. The bridge waa 
not running cars then, and even refused foot 
passengers an entrance. Fulton Ferry was- 
blocked. The hundreds of people who had 
gathered at the two gateways to the city were 
impatient. A daring spirit leaped from the- 
bridge dock to the ice and started afoot across 
the floe. His progress was anxiously noted for 
awhile, and then another man tried it. Mor» 
followed, and in a quarter of an hour a strag- 
gling line of pedestrians stretched across the 
river from Brooklyn to New York. At this end 
they found three piers on which a landing 
could be made. One was the upper Mallory 
dock, another the Harlem dock^of Fulton 
Ferry, and the third the Black Ball dock, just 
above. The last was the favorite, especially 
after half a dozen fishmongers from Fulton 
Market, whose occupation the blizzard had 
destroyed, let down ladders, and accommo- 
dated climbers at 5 cents a head. The exam- 
ple inspired people at the New York end ta 
travel eastward, and by 9 o'clock hundreds 
were availing themselves of the unusual pas- 
sage. The Brooklyn Bridge was opened to 
trafflc soon afterward, but this did not deter 
the natural bridge passengers, many of whom 
made the trip simply to say they did it. On the 
bridge immense crowds stood and gazed on 
the singular sight below. A large number of 
these persons hurried to the nearest end of the 
bridge and made for^he ice passage, in search 
of adventure and glory. 

About 9 o'clock some tugs made strenuous 
efforts to break the blockade. One tried it on 
the west side without success. The powerful 
tug Transfer No. 1 of the New Haven line went 
through the six-inch ice like cheese, as far as 
the second Fulton Ferry slip. This opened th& 
road for the ferryboat Fulton, which began ply- 
ing between the slip and Catharine Ferry oa 
this side. It destroyed the entrance to the ic& 
bridge, too, and drove the people down to- 
Martin's stores, where some 'longshoremen 
erected ladders. They exacted one cent toll, 
but were willing to take a quarter, and got a 
good many of them, with several coins of larger 
size. One man gave a dollar, and said it was i 
worth it to walk across the East River. 

Several women made the trip. Some were- 
unattended. 

Richard Raising, a ferryman at Fulton Ferry, 
estimates the number of persons who crossed 
at 10,000. Mr. Howell of Martin's Stores says- 
there were only 1,000. The majority of esti- 
mates range between these figures. 

As soon as Mr. Martin discovered the ice- 
bridge he declared the passage foolhardy, and 
decreed that no others should make the trips- 
from his two piers. The enterprising ladder 
men thereupon transferred themselves and } 
their ladders to Watson's pier, just below, and . 
business was continued. A good many started ■; 
from Roberts's piers, but the ice there was not 
safe, and people were warned off. 

The dogs who crossed the natural bridge ■ 
were legion. They seemed to appreciate the ' 
rarity of the situation. Tommy Ryan. a. \ 
Brooklyn junk dealer, has a dog with a record. ; 
He made the trip four times all on his own ,/! 
account. i 

Charles Peck of Brooklyn, whose wife was the--^ 
first woman to cross the Brooklyn Bridge after jj 
it was built, travelled yesterday's ice bridge '^ 
twice. He had business in New York, and, as ■; 
the ferries did not run. came over and back on ., 
the ice. He said it was solid as a paveinent.« 
C. R. Gone went to business in Brooklyn oqS; 
that passage, and said he wished it were per-» 

i 



inanent. The -wiiid blew him eiear across 
-without effort on iiis pa»t. He tried first to 
land at lloberts's Stores, but finding that un- 
safe climbed up above the ferry house. 

Meantime the tugs were very hard at work 
trying to force a passage. One hugged the 
Now York shore, another the Brooklyn shore. 
Others attacked the floe from the south. They 
did little good for awhile. A large tug belong- 
ing to the Old Dominion line did the biggest 
slice of work in the beginning. 

High tide was due at 9:40 o'clock. Its efTect 
■was felt about 10 o'clock. The average pedes- 
trian did not know this and did not caro. But 
the seamen and 'longshoremen knew the fact 
and realized the danger when ebb tide would 
loosen the ice raft from its moorings. The 
knowing ones therefore placed themselves at 
the several entrances to the floe and warned 
people back. Very many refused to obey, and, 
the laadors having been banished, lot them- 
selves down from the piers. The ice looked 
strong and they thirsted for glory. Many were 
seized by the 'longshoremen and kept off by 
main foi-ee. 

At the turn of the tide the great icefield 
moved. Not a crack on its surface showed the 
change, but a grating upon the ends of the 
piers against which it was pinned told the story 
to the self-appointed watchers along the shore, 
and loud were the cries to get to the shore. 
There were over a hundred persons on the ice 
at this moment. Most of them broke into a 
run. Some of the cranks, who felt safe from 
having a firm surface beneath their feet, per- 
sisted in plodding on at their own time. Sev- 
eral minutes elapsed after the first warning. 
Then, with some quick creaking and cracking 
from end to end, the floe began to shift sea- 
ward. The most imperturbable then took 
fright, and on both sides of the river thrilling 
scenes were enacted. 

About forty persons crowded to the edge of 
the ice at the main entrance to the Black Ball 
dock. But the dock was passed. The ice was 
shifting seaward. A grab was made then at 
the end of the Fulton Ferry pier, but the piles 
were slippery and the edges of the ice showed 
signs of crumbling. The most intense excite- 
ment reigned upon the ice floe, and on the 
docks as well. 

New arrivals from across the ice increased 
the crowd at the edge e very moment. Some 
laughed in the excitement. Some exchanged 
cool jokes with those on the docks. One quiet- 
ly asked to have a tug sent down for him ; an- 
other requested a stove ; still another shouted 
that he'd cable when he reached the other side. 
The majority, though, were greatly excited. 
Most of them shouted aimlessly ; one man sank 
on his knees and prayed. 

Slowly the floe drifted down. There was not 
a rowboat accessible. Several tugs began to 
get up steam for the rescue, but the floe grated 
against the northerly Mallory piers, the next 
below the ferry, crumbled and shivered against 
the iiiers, and almost stopped. The pause was 
only for five minutes, but in that time a score 
of dock employees lowered ladders and helped 
every one ashore. One man. in his nervous- 
ness, reeled to one side and slid off into the icy 
water. The 'longshoremen were by, and quick- 
ly seized him and pulled him out. 

Another man was found covered with ice 
from head to foot. His teeth chattered, his eyes 
•wore dull, his face was white. He said he'd 
broken through some rotten ice on the Brook- 
lyn edge of the floe, and been hauled up on the 
firm ice. They tried to make him go back on 
shore, but he said he'd cross that river if he 
died for it. 

Soon after the last man was landed the field 
yielded to the tide, and moved rapidly down the 
stream. 

On the Brooklyn side more excitmg mci- 
<Jents were taking place. There was no ci'owd, 
for there were few gomg eastward. Three men 
who had just started when the big fioo halted 
on the turn of the tide seemed uncertain 
which way to go. The tug Marehall was to 
the southward cutting north. She had made 
little progress, but when the tide turned she 
made one long leg back, and in the plunge for- 
ward cut the ice like pie crust. She went 
faster than was expected, and approached 
close to where the three young men had just 
started on their]iierilous trip. 



The men stopped In terror. The ice bulged 
underneath them with the pressure and th» 
waves. Had they rushed on they would at 
least have stood upon the main sheet. >As it 
was they hesitated, moved backward, forward, 
back again, and stood still. The ice cracked 
merrily. Then it bulged up. separated, and each 
of the three young men were launched upon a 
separate cake of ice. The tug had gone through 
likean arrow, and was far up the stream. They 
shouted frantically and waved their arms. 
Those in the crowd on the wharves shouted 
and waved their arms, too. Several tugs saw 
the predicament and started to the rescue, but 
ice intervened. Two of the young men were on 
neighboring ice cakes. One finally made a 
dangerous jump to the cake nearer the shore 
on \vhich his companion stood. The crowd 
shouted approval, told them to keep their 
hearts, but could do nothing. The other young 
man, who was irreproachably dressed and car- 
ried a satchel, was on a cake scarcely 25 feet in 
diameter. He ran from edge to edge, till each 
time he nearly dipped in the water, and showed 
such terror that terror was communicated to 
those on shore. The spot was near enough the 
big bridge to attract the attention of large 
crowds, who shouted in sympathy. 

The cakes drifted near liobert's Stores. Men 
stood on the piers and tried to throw lines to 
the ice-wrecked men. The distance was only 
fifty feet, but the wind spoiled the aim. The 
men drifted further away and their cries re- 
douljled. The tug James Watt approached 
them, and threw them lines, but failed to con- 
nect. Finally the tug S. E. Babcock got near 
enough to them for Capt. 'Lisha Morris to haul 
them over the rail. Shouts went up from the 
shore, and the tug steamed toward the Battery. 

A fourth man was caught at the same time, 
but. being near the shore, he threw himself in. 
the water and was pulled up on the docks. 

The last ice bridge was in 1875. when the ebb 
and flow of the tide did not affect the ice ex- 
cept to raise and lower it. A team was driven 
across that ice bridge once as a deed of daring. 
It lasted for several days. 



yn/E PILOT BOATS IN DISTRESS. 

Sandy Hook pilots know a nor 'west bliz- 
zard when it comes along, and every mother's 
son of them that got ashore yesterday with a 
whole skin was willing to swear by the piper 
that played before Moses that Monday's blow 
was a blow that could give Sullivan, Mitchell, 
or any other hard hitter a deckload of points 
on the "knocking out" business, and come up 
smiling for an unlimited number of rounds. 

Danger in the pilot's life is so frequent that 
nothing short of death itself, faced as it was by 
fifty-seven brave fellows comprising the crews 
of nine pilot boats on Monday afternoon and 
night, can induce them to tell of the perils they 
undergo. In that terrible blizzard of Monday, 
between noon and midnight, no less than seven 
storm-driven pilot boats went ashore, and two 
others were abandoned lielpless. 
""It was blowing Hard from the southeast," 
said the Captain, "when we made fast to Fisk's 
pier, inside the Horseshoe, at 4 o'clock on Sun- 
day afternoon. A lew coasting schooners, 
bound east, were at anchor in the bend, and 
others were coming in for a harbor. Jlost of 
them anchored pretty close to the west shore 
of Sandy Hook, so as to ride in smooth water. 
None of them expected the wind to jump round 
to the westward and blow great guns like it did 
belore midnight, putting them all too close to 
a lee shore. After dark Sunday night we 
saw nothing till daylight this morn- 
ing, except a howling blizzard, such 
as I never saw before, and 1 hope never to see 
again. Those five pilot boats must have come 
in during Sunday night and anchored, three of 
them— the Blunt. Williams, and Sturv— over to 
the south'ard in the bight, and the Centennial 



and Cooper a few lengths apart iiist soutli of 
Fish's pier. At noon on Monday, the rescued 
men said, the situation was awful. The Wil- 
liams. Cooper, and Story each had both 
anchors out, and they were diving 
into the furious sea, The spray froze ■ 
on the rig^'ing, and each sea swept 
tlieir decks, and poured below. Knocked down 
repeatedly by the wind and sea, the men yet 
managed to fire guns of distress, which were 
heard by the life-saving ci-ew on shore, who were 
powerless to help. During three hours of fearful 
suspense the half-frozen crews heard the surf 
getting closer astern every moment. They knew 
that with every inch of cable out their splendid 
craft were dragging their anchors, and must 
soon strike the beach. Oil bags were hung 
over the bows, and they smoothed the great 
ground swell combers a little, but not enougli 
to save them. The stern of the Williams struck 
the beach first. The first sea turned her broad- 
side on to the beach, and broke high over her 
port side. Pilots and crew jumped overboard 
when she struck. The yawls were useless, and 
it was a swim for life. Encumbered by heavy 
clothes, oilers, and rubber boots, it was 
a wonder they reached the shore, but they did. 
Swimming, wading, and then crawling half 
drowned up the icy beach, they stood together 
in a snowdrift and thanked God for their es- 
cape. It was then about 5 o'clock. Knowing 
nothing of their comrades' fate in the other 
boats, these men again faced almost certain 
death in a half-mile tramp to the boarding 
house across the peninsula kept by Mrs. 
Stuart. Supporting Pilot Marshall White, who 
otherwise would have fallen by the way, 
they reached the house by sheer luck two hours 
later. How they accomplished it they cannot 
tell themselves, for they were completely ex- 
hausteu. ^leanwhile the crew of the Blunt, 
finding th^ vessel going ashore, slipped their 
anchors, hi: . Iieading her for the beach, sent 
her bow on. i jumped ashore safely without 
having to s\\ ' 

The Story ;■ vl the same fate as the Wil- 
liams, and wa; wh broadside on the beach, 
some of the crt tting ashore in the yawl 
and others swin "-. The crews all met at 
the boarding hoii. • midnight, where they 
remained all nighi . Stuart making them 
as comfortable as ii le. 

" I was ready to ._. " said Pilot Joe Rus- 
sell, "when I saw ti. lit in that house. I 
tell you it was a godsei 'o might have all 
frozen to death in the sl 

Russell's face was bad, -i on one side, 

and one poor fellow's fa^ 'most black 

with the cold. He suffered 1> Daylight 

yesterday morning brought ^\ ■ 1] hands, 

and this is where the tug's cre\\ ty. 

Close in to the beach, looking hi oblong 

icebergs with spars in them, and p. : into 

the seas, the Centennial and Cooper ■ 1 up 

out of the snow squalls. No tinit. -^e. 

There were twenty men's lives to t ic 

there. The tug's crew ran south do\, > 

beach 200 yards, the nearest point to the ■ 
Heavy ice had been driven in on the h' 
and over this they made their way with (. 
eulty Mgainst the wind. Deckhand Stone thi 
a headline to the Centennial's yawl, in whi' 
the shivering crew were standing under ht 
stern, but the leather broke, letting the leac 
drop before it reached them. Stone's ears wen 
frozen, but he ran back for some planks. Ont' 
reached the boat. The first man was blown oh ■ 
it by the wind, but was pulled on the ice; the 
rest came across safely. The other crews had 
seen their comrades' peril, and now came hur- 
rying down the beach. The Williams crew 
hove a line over the ice to the Centennial's 
yawl, and pulled her ashore with another 
precious cargo. 

Then all hands", assisted by the Zouave's 
crew, turned to and got the Cooper's crew 
ashore in much the same way. It was a gallant 
rescue by a gallant crew, and those fifty men 
standing on the snow-bound beach made a 
picture not soon to be forgotten by those pres- 
ent. The colored cook of the Blunt had to be 
carried from the red boarding house to the tug, 
so badly were his limbs frozen. 

One of the saddest incidents in connection 
with the disasters at Sandy Hook-Avas the land- 
ing of the Captain's wife of the fishing sloop 
Pocahontas: The woman, who is said to be 
young and handsome, had her feet and legs so 



terribly frozen that amputation will be neces- 
sary to save her lit^ The little sloop camei- 
ashore in the gale in the night, and the Cap- 
tain's wife was thrown into the surf. She is 
being cared for by Mrs. Stuart. 

The Richards, with thirty men, left Sandy 
Hook pier at 9 o'clock yesterday morning and 
came direct to the city. On the way up the bay 
the pilot boat Hope was seen ashore on the- 
rocks just north of Fort Wadsworth, and over 
at Bay Ridge the Nye, Harrison, and Driggs 
were seen. From the maintopmast of the> 
Driggs her signal of distress, the American en- 
sign union down, was flying tattered in the 
storm. The Harrison's anchors were both 
down, and she was on an even keel, but the ice 
had forced her ashore. The crews of these 
boats, especially those on the Nye, that sunk 
under them, had some thrilling experiences 
getting ashore over the ice. Imi)rovising sleds, 
they began to take out their stores and ballast 
yesterday afternoon. 

The crews of the Centennial and Cooper were 
compelled to abandon them, as they were liter- 
ally enveloped in ice, and with water in their 
holds it was only a question of a few hours, 
when they would either sink or go ashore. 
Wrecking steamers went to Sandy Hook last 
night to try and get all the pilot boats afloat 
again. 

Another wrecking steamer from Merritt's. 
Clifton, will attempt to float the Hope at liigh, 
water. It was reported last night that tlie 
Scotland lightship was adrift about two mil-.'s 
southeast of her station. Several steamers,- 
supposed to be the Furnessia, Werra, Niagara, 
and Ailsa. were anchored outside the bar. 

Two coasting schooners came ashore 'on 
Sandy Hook Beach during Monday night. The 
crews are believed to be safe. 

Pilot Frank Lincoln of the Charlotte Webb,. 
No. 5, who left her 100 miles east of Sandy 
Hook, to bringthe steamship Bohemia up, fear-> 
for her safety. She has ou board Pilots A. C. 
Markham, Frank Fennay, Harry Peter.sen^ 
Charles Hammer, and Gus Burns. 

The Phantom No. 11, which went to sea on. 
Thursday, has only Pilot Charles Samson on 
board. The Edward E. Barrett put Pilot W. \V. 
Black aboard the steamer Lahm on Saturday, 
one on the Etruria, and one on the City of Chi- 
cago. Pilot Charles Hughes is yet on board of 
her. Pilot Jerry Reardon, Robert Sylvester.. 
and Edward Nichols are aboard the David 
Carrl off Nantucket; Michael Eagan, Georges. 
"Watson, and Benjamin F. Chapman are in the 
J. G. Bennett, and Thomas C. Lennon, W. C. 
Hall. John Hall, and Richard Bigley are aboard, 
the Thomas Negus. She left New London on. 
Saturday nieht. The Enchantress is an old 
boat. She has Pilots Dan Jones. J. Martineau. 

Seguine, and J. Johnson aboard ; J. Heaths 

Fred Ryerson, Oscar Stauffrieden, and Frank 
Metealf aje in the M. H. Starbuck. 

The lower bay, with the exception of the ship 
Revolving Light and a disabled schooner at 
anchor on the Southwest Spit, was bare, but 
the upper bay, between the Narrows and the 
Battery, presented as lively a winter panorama 
as was ever seen. 'Six tugs struggled six hours 
with the tea clipper South America, that had 
dragged her anchors in the ice from Bedlow's. 
Island to Red Hook, before they cleai-ed her 
and towed her up the Kill Von Kull. The 
schooner W. Bailey dragged athwart the bark 
Pettingill's " hawse " and carried away her 
flying jibboom, while down as far as Bay Ridge 
schooners were jammed in the ice and tutrs 
thick as flies hovered around them for a job. 
Trouble is anticipated on both rivers for days 
to come on accovint of the ice. 

Another day has gone, and not a train has 
left the Grand Central Depot except as a rescue 
train, and not a train has got in except trains 
rescued. 

"How about our road?" said President De- 
pew of the New York Central, repeating the- 
reporter's question. "Why, there isn't any 
road. The roads are all gone. We have not 
been able to do anything in the way of moving 
trains. Six hundred men have been at work 
since fiaylight trying to clear out the tunnel 
between Fifty-ninth and Ninety-sixth streets. 



ana have made some progress. There Is no 
way of telling when trains will begin to move," 

No attempt was made to send out any trains. 
No communication could be had by wire with 
the agents along the lines, and there was no 
way of learning the condition of those passen- 
gers who were confined in stalled trains at any 
distance from the city. 

One track of the three roads that enter the 
Grand Central Depot was clear as far as Mott 
Haven by 5 P. M. yesterday. The tracks as far 
as Woodlawn Junction are used in common by 
the New York Central, the Harlem, and the 
New Haven roads, and this one track, there- 
fore, sufQced to bring in some of the trains on 
the three roads that had been stalled between 
the Grand Central Depot and Mott Haven. At 
6 o'clock the first two of these, the Shore line 
express and the Stamford local, had come in. 
The day had been a particularly hard one for 
everybody employed about the yards of the de- 
pot. Jilarly in the morning the tracks were cov- 
ered with many feet of snow, and it took 
hours of labor to clean them. Sledge hammers 
had to be used in moving the switches, which 
were covered with thick ice. An engine was 
sent up as far as Seventy-ninth street at noon, 
behind the gang of Italian laborers, and tried 
to force a way through the bank of snow piled 
up in the tunnel. No progress was made, 
however, and the engine was kept running up 
and down the different tracks in the yard to 
keep them clean. The 600 men worked under 
the personal supervision of Superintendent 
Toueey, and their progress was rapid after 
passing Seventieth street. In places drifts 
had formed seven and eight feet deep, and at 
2 o'clock the despatcher of the New Haven 
road said that such a drift extend- 
ing a distance of 300 feet had been 
encountered. Another engine was sent vip. but 
was stalled in the cut, and it required a great 
deal of laoor to get it back again. Late in the 
afternoon the officials of the New Haven road 
said that an attempt would be made to run a 
rescue train to Woodlawn Junction. They ex- 
pressed great doubts as to its success. A train 
was also started from the Harlem River branch 
of the Now Haven road at Morrisania to New 
Eochelle. The wires all being down, it was im- 
possible for the officials to learn Avhether this 
had gotten through. 

AT LEAST FIFTY TKAINS STILL SNOW BOUND. 

The situation in the afternoon was this: 
Seven local trains and a number of through 
trains (supposed to be four) were stalled at dif- 
ferent points on the road. Their exact where- 
abouts could not be ascertained. On the New 
York Central and Harlem Kiver roads fourteen 
trains were snow bound around Spuyten Duyvil 
and Woodlawn Junction and at least thirty-six 
more detained elsewhere. Superintendent Tou- 
eey said it was impossible to say just where 
these trains were, but he felt certain that many 
of thorn had been held at stations, where the 
passengers were well provided for. The Chi- 
cago limited, due here at 7 P. M. on Monday 
night, was held at Schenectady. No trains 
were allowed to move between Syracuse and 
Albany, and all east-bound trains were hold at 
the latter city. The snow was reported to be 
seven feet deep on the Harlem tracks, and 
even as far as Albany the snow lay piled up 
for several feet. 

Mr. Depew said that he had tried to employ 
more men to clear away the snow, but had 
found it impossible. 

" Tlie present condition of the stalled trains^" 



he said, " shows tlie iiecessity for stoves in cars. 
If it were not for the stoves in these trains the 
passengers would freeze to death, because the 
fires in the locomotives are nil out for lack of 
water, and there would therefore be no steam, 
either." « 

LIVINa IN THE STATION, 

The New Haven road officials thought early 
on Monday morning that they could get out the 
5 A. M. accommodation train. Fifty tickets 
were sold and the jiassengers got aboard the 
train. An engine was put at the head of the 
train, but when it came to move it the train 
could not be budged. The engine could not be 
taken back to the round house either, and was 
stalled in the depot. The passengers, rinding 
they could not get away, determined to keep 
their places, and the oars were turned into a 
series of sleeping apartments. The passengers 
went out to their meals and returned. They 
were still there last night, and said that, while 
their anarters were not the most comfortable 
in the world, they were the cheapest they knew 
of. They said they would i-emain there for a 
week if necessary. 

A lank, long-bearded individual spent the 
greater part of yesterday in making the lives 
of the officials weary. He travelled from one 
office to another, taking names and asking a 
hundred different questions. "I bought my 
ticket to Motmt Vernon yesterday," he said, 
'■ and I want to get there. I've got some cows 
and horses locked up in my barn and they are 
starving to death. I've got the keys in my 
pocket." 

" Why don't you walk up from the Suburban?" 
he was asked, 

"Because I've paid to ride. I'll sue the com- 
pany. I knew Commodore Vanderbilt, and I 
know all the heads of the road now. I'm going 
to get even on this." 

The depot was crowded with persons anxious 
to depart. They were allowed to stay all night. 

ABOABD THE STALLED TRAINS. 

The officials of the New York Central, the 
Harlem, and the New Haven railroads sent 
sleighs up to the nearest trains, and in this 
way removed the nassengers, who were tired of 
Avaiting for the tracks to be cleared. The 
sleighs got as far as Mott Haven, and took all 
the passengers who had remained over night 
in the cars of the shore line express, the Stam- 
ford local, and the Harlem locals. They were 
taken to the elevated roads. Of these trains 
the shore line had left Boston on Sunday 
night and was due in the Grand Central Depot 
at 7 A. M. on Monday, and the Stamford local 
had been expected earlier. On both of these 
trains the passengers had been well provided 
for, however. To the shore line express three 
sleepers were attached and every passenger 
had a comfortable bed. 

All the snow-bound travellers were not so 
fortunate. Food and fuel became scarce long 
before nightfall on Monday in many of the 
trains scattered along the three roads, and in 
some cases the suffering was intense. Many 
passengers left the stalled trains and tried to 
reach the city by their own efforts. Some were 
fortunate enough to get sleighs at farm houses, 
but these were very few. Then others tramped 
through snow up to their waists, and succeeded 
in pulling through at all only by keeping in 
groups, so that if a man fell ho would bo as- 
sisted. 

TONKEKS FOLKS MAKE A NIGHT OP IT. 

The train that left Yonkers at 7:19 A. M. on 
Monday became stuck in a snow drift just this 
side of Spuyten Duyvil at 9:55. The snow 
blew and drifted around the train until it was 
even with the car windows. It was impossible 
to keep warm, and there was not enough coal 
to last long. The water gave out early, and 
the Qres in the engine had to bo allowed to go 
out. There were only a half dozen women on 
the train and about sixty men. When the pas- 
sengers learned that it would be impossible to 
get out of the drift they turned all the ears ex- 
cept the first into smoking cars. 'The women 
passengers established themselves in the first 
car, and issued an order barring all the men 
out. Before night the novelty of the situation 
had worn off. There was no drinking water, 
and snow was melted. Wlien the grumbling 
was at its height one old farmer settled back 
in his seat, and, removing li.is pipe, yelledj 



"••"Well, Olaauncey's boom Is Ousted now." 
Some sandwiches were brought to the cars by 
the trainmen, but they merely whetted the 
appetites of the men, who had nothing to do 
but rail at their fate and get hunm-yTf This 
state of affairs gave some of the shTewd but 
imDecunious passengers an excellent oppor- 
tunity to make money. Five of them left the 
train and skirmished around the farm houses, 
and even went back to Spuyten Duyvil. They 
came back in the afternoon loaded down with 
well-filled baskets that contained all kinds of 
provisions. These they disposed of at Del- 
monico prices. 

TKAMPING DOWN. 

On Monday night the travellers took the 
cushions out of the seats and made them into 
beds by spreading them across the tops of th© 
seats. Tliere was very little sleep, though, for 
anybody. The excitement and anxiety were 
sufficient to keep the majority aAvake, and the 
hilarity of the few spirits indifferent to the 
situation would have prevented sleep anyhow. 
To the women the night was very long, al- 
thotigh everything possible was done for their 
comfort. Early yesterday morning twenty of 
the men determined to make the attempt to 
get to the city on foot. They succeeded, after 
weary hours of drawing one leg after another 
through deep snow drifts, in getting to Mott 
Haven. Here they took a short rest and then 
plodded across to the suburban branch of the 
Second avenue elevated road. 

One of this party said that a train a few miles 
back had been completely snowed in. The 
snow was banked up all about the engine, and 
the fires were out. The supply of coal had run 
short, and such wood as could be obtained by 
chopping up the card tables in the smoker gave 
out. '"All the passengers were suffering from 
cold, and one man was reported to be so badly 
frozen that it was not believed that he would 
recover. There was considerable suffering 
from hunger also. 

At Mount Vernon the fire department was 
called out to pump water into the engines of 
several local trains of the Harlem road that had 
been held there. The average number of pas- 
sengers on each train was placed at 200. Mr. 
Butler, one of Superintendent Toucey's assist- 
ants, was on the shore line express of the New 
Haven road, and left the train at 110th street. 
He said that he suffered no hardships until he 
began his walk down to the depot, when he 
found himself enveloped in drifts that nearly 
engulfed him. Several times he feared that he 
had bitten off more than he could chew. He 
got to the offices in the depot completely ex- 
hausted. Another official was snowbound at 
Mott Haven, and walked down. He was lucky 
enough to capture a sleigh after trudging 
through miles of snow above his knees. 

MES. PEESCOTT'S BEAVE WAiK. 

Mr. Prescott, one of the owners of the Con- 
sumers' Coal Company of this city, was caught, 
with his wife, on a local Harlem train at Mott 
Haven. They started, with a party of three 
men. Monday noon, to walk down. 

"It was impossitile to tell," he said yester- 
day, " where the drifts lay, because of the many 
depressions in the road that we took. The snow 
was seldom less than knee deep, and while 
"walKing along in what appeared to be a level 
we would suddenly find ourselves floundering 
up to our arm pits. My wile was almost chilled 
to death. The most of the time she Avas wad- 
ing through snow tip to her waist. When we 
finally got to the Suburban road she was al- 
most dead." 

" Why did you leave the train ?" he was asked. 

"Because," he replied, "we feared being 
frozen to death if we stayed there. Before we 
left the train the passengers were chopping up 
the card tables and seats for fire wood. It was 
simply a question of staying and freezing or 
striking out and taking the chances of getting 
home. In fact, we did not think the travelling 
would prove so bad as it did." 

MEN SUFFERING ON A STALLED CATTLE TEAIN. 

A railroad man from Albany arrived down 
town on the Sixth avenue elevated yesterday. 
He had left his train behind him at the Man- 
hattanville station of the Central's Hudson 
River branch. His train was a mixed one, 
with a good deal of iiva stock and a. dozen or 



more persons aboard when ft left Albany at" 5 
o'clock Sunday evening. 

" We got stuck along about Breakneck," he 
said, "and lay there until a freight came up 
behind us. The engineer cut loose from his 
own train and shoved us along to Yonkers, and 
there he left us and went back after his train 
again. IVe got along somehow until wo ran 
into a train ahead of us and smashed the 
caboose all to splinters. It didn't do any other 
damage though, and we got on at last to Man- 
hattanville station. There our own engineer 
cut loose and said he'd run ahead for water. 
We didn't see. anything more of him, and we've 
laid there ever since. The first ones out were 
myself and another man. He came near dying 
before we got through the drifts. I had to pull 
him out two or three times, and if he hadn't 
had some whiskey and drunk a little once in a 
while I think he'd a been a goner. There are 
eight or nine men left there, and they haven't 
anything to eat, or any money to buy it even ii 
there was any place to get it. There were 
some of the cattle dead already when I left, 
and the sheep and hogs especially seemed to 
be suffering." 

The story was corroborated by an Iowa man 
who was coming through on the same train) 
with nineteen horses, and who escaped and got 
down town himself and brought a large satchel 
along besides, carriedjover his shoulder bv a,' 
piece of rope. He wore two overcoats, and was 
otherwise prepared in Western fashion for cold. 
He said he didn't mind this Eastern weather* 
much, but tfiought the railroad accommoda-i 
tions left something to be desired. Many OD 
his horses were dead, and he expected to lose) 
them all. 

TEAINS EUNNING TO NEWAEK. 

Tne Pennsylvania broke the blockade at 5:20! 
yesterday afternoon. At that hour they sent a 
train to Newark. It carried out about 250 
people who had been waiting for hours to getj 
home. This train got back to Jersey City ati 
6:41, and was sent over the line again at 7:51. 
It returned at 8:50. and at 9:48 it left for New- 
ark again. At 10:30 a second crew was put on. 
and Superintendent Crawford said that he| 
should send trains over the road as far as New- 
ark every forty-five minutes all night. Super- 
intendent Crawford got to work in the morningj 
by 9 o'clock with a large force. 

The yard was in pretty good shape, and by 11 
o'clock an attack was made on the drifts near 
Marion. The west-boundj track through the| 
deep cut was found to be almost clear of snow,; 
but the least-bouud is covered up with so many 
feet of it that it will not be touched until the 
rest of the line is opened. Along about 4 o'clock 
the road grew lively with trains of coaches, 
which were brought in from along the line near 
Marion. No snow waslfound across the mead- 
ows, but it was well banked up just this side 
of Newark. But the hardest job was in New- 
ark itself. A freight and a passenger train 
were stalled between Market and Chestnut 
streets, and great piles of snow were found at 
every street crossing. By 5 o'clock Superin- 
tendent Crawford said: "The line is clear to 
Eahway, and I shall send a train to Newark at 
once; I hear that the line is also clear from 
Philadelphia to Trenton and halfway from 
Trenton to llahway. I think we may be able to 
send a train to I'hiladelphia to-night." 

The Chicago Limited, the only train sent out 
on Monday, which left at 10 A. M., was found 
yesterday at Harrison. The engine had run 
its front truck off the track. It was jacked on, 
and the train was taken into Newark, where it 
will remain until the line is cleared. 

EEIE GETS TO PATEESON. 

The hundred and fifty or more passengers 
who were imprisoned in the Erie depot in Jer- 
sey City on Monday night where the Susque- 
hanna left them on her last trip at lO/i, spent 
the night in comparative comfort. Miss Phelps 
and the married lady and her children slept 
comfortably in Superintendent Barret's room 
on the second floor. The lively shop and fac- 
tory girls curled themselves up on the seats of 
a Nyack coach, and half a dozen other coaches 
were at the disposal of the rest of the people., 

A good many people who spent the afternoon 
and night of Monday in the depot went aci-oss 
to the city, but nearly all retui'ned soon and 
waited for trains home. They were not cheered 



tiy inis notice, whict was piil tat) early Tn IBe 
day: 

We do not expect to start any trains from here to-day. 
J. H. Baerktt, Superintendent. 

In the afternoon the west-bound track was 
cleared ;ind a train was sent through to clear 
the road to Paterson. The trains which were 
stuck at Paasalc were found and all the passen- 
gers who wished to do so returned on the work 
train to Paterson. At 8 o'clock the first passen- 
ger train was sent from Jersey City to Paterson. 
It took only two coaches and had two^heavy 
engines to take it through. No attempt was 
made to clear the Newark branch or the North- 
ern.' It was thought last night that a train 
would be -^t^nt out for Haverstraw over the New 
Jersey ani New York. This road was said to be 
free of ba<: 'rifts for twenty miles from Bergen. 
All the 8ta 1 trains east of Port Jervis were 
reported t(/ o in safe places. One that passed 
Port -Jervis rht before last got back there 
before it wa nowed in. It is not probable that 
any train wi. e sent out on the main line bo- 
fore to-night, the reports indicate that the 
drifts are tre(j 'it and too hard to get through 
without shove. <?. When the storm' struck 
thojroad it g;. the men hard work" to get 
things into ehii Twenty cars of cattle were 

amongthelHBt insin. It took seven engines 
toget them Intt lo shed, but it was done, 
although three the last cars were bucked 
off the track In ci g it. There were a lot more 
of cattle bound fi V^eehawken. These were 
not so lucky. Th. were caught, and have 
without doubt fi -en to death. At least 
twenty engines wei . 'looked in the Erie ya 1. 
They had fuel enout; to keep them alive, but 
no water. Snow was melted for a while, and 
afterward hose was run to them from the 
street, but two of them died- 

NOTHING STIES ON D.. L. AND W. OK WEST SHOKE. 

The D., L. & W. E ■ "oadeot out one work 
train to Newark yest ay, and that was all. A 
placard at the tiokt fflce announced: "No 
trains will be run to-d , March 13." Yester- 
day the tracks were to ; roat extent cleared 
through the tunnel ano r the meadows to 
Newark. At the crossin, •. the Susquehanna 
road, a few rods beyond i <■ tunnel, two Sus- 
quehanna engines were st \ 'd with their fires 
out, eftectually barring the way. They were 
removed in the afternoon. At Sandford's cross- 
ing four telegraph poles lay a rose the track 
with snow drifted around them m heaps/ Be- 
tween Highland Station and Boi.h Orange ten 
or fifteen trains which starten on Monday 
from Easton, Morristown, and othi r places are 
blocked in. They carry from 800 t ( 1 .000 pas- 
sengers. Since the blockade most ol tho trains 
have been brought near stations whore there 
is no danger of the passengers suffering from 
cold or hunger. 

3Iany offlie business men of the Oranges 
got down as far as Newark yesterday in sleighs 
or on foot, but could come no further. A gen- 
tleman who walked in from Brick Church said 
that from Newark the comparatively clear 
tracks made the walking, an easy matter. On 
the Bnonton branch the road was practically 
open to Paterson by yesterday afternoon, but 
<M. tiviins were rur\. It is expected that trains 
will be run at least by to-day noon. In the 
mean time the milk trains cannot bring their 
freight to the city and the mails cannot bo 
despatched. 

,On the West Shore traffic is entirely sus- 
pended. 

NO GO ON JERSEY CENTBAL. 

The blockade on the Jersey Central was even 
more complete yesterday than on Monday. 
Not a train was run oa-anyof the divisions, 
and the efforts of th& company's employees 
were directed to the clearing of tracks for the 
possible resumption of traffic to-day. Six loco- 
motives labored all the morning and well into 
the afternoon to release two trains from the 
big drift in the long cut at Jackson avenue, on 
the Newark branch, and succeeded. The trains 
wore accommodations that started for Newark 
early Monday morning. They were stuck fast 
in tho snow all Monday night. Some of the 
passengers secured lodgings in tho neighbor- 
hood, others sat in tho little station, and the 
rest spent the night in the bunks improvised 
from the materials in the cai:s. They were 



brought back to the city yesterday afternoon. 
The officers of the company were so much en- 
couraged with the success of their efforts to 
clear the Jackson avenue cut that it was de- 
termined to start a train for Newark at 7 P. M., 
but when that hour arrived the tracks were 
again covered with drifted snow, and it did not 
seem possible that a train could be got out 
until this morning. 

On the Long Branch division no trains were 
moved. A locomotive with a car load of track- 
men started out on the main lino to clear the 
outbound track, and penetrated as far as Green- 
ville. Three locomotives had come up to 
Greenville on the in-bound track from Bergen 
Point. The drift at Greenville was too deep 
for them, and they were switched to the other 
track and brought up to Communipaw by the 
trackmen's train, together with a handful of 
belated travellers who had seized the opportu- 
nity to get away from Bergen Point. Engine 
38, drawing the trackmen's train, ran into a 
bank of snow at Greenville so deen and closely 
packed that the force of the collision shattered 
the glass of the headlight and cab windows. 
Bits of the flying glass struck the face of En- 
gineer M. N. Clapp, lacerating it badly. 

Down at Bergen Point a train with 100 pas-, 
sengers for New York was caught in the bliz-j 
zard and has not vet been released. At last 
accounts the hungry travellers had devoured 
about everything edible in Bergen Point, to the 
great dismay of tbat isolated and needy com- 
munity. 

Four locomotives that had attempted to clear 
the line were reported off the track between 
Bergen Point and Elizabethport. 

Tne Lily Clay blondes were still in the Jersey] 
City depot last nigfit. determined to remain Ini 
their special car until it is taken somewhere.' 
Another party chartered the sleeper Earitan.i 
,and was very comfortable. 

It is expected that trains will be moving onl 
the Newark branch this morning. 

AUSTIN COEBIN BEINGS IN A TEAIN. 

The Long Island Railroad Depot was the sub- 
ject for an artist Monday night and yesterdayl 
morning. People who failed to connect on the] 
home stretch, sought sweet repose on thei 
downy floor of the waiting room. The benches 
were filled with the weary.Two men pulled downl 
a long ladder, which hung on the walls, and 
slept on the rungs. Many stayed there all day 
yesterday and slept there again last night. The, 
hotels of Long Island City were filled to over-' 
flowing. The lingering hone that perhaps a 
train would move out, kept the crowd in the 
station. 

In the sheds of the station were drifts six 
feet high, and not until night did the busy 
workmen succeed in uncovering the platforms. 
The whole system is demoralized. Between 
Newtown and Corona the 6:10 train from Long 
Island City to Whitestone Landing is stuck^ 
fast, and has been since Monday morning. 
Only one train left the Long Island City sta- 
tion which succeeded in getting to its destina- 
tion. It reached Breakneck in four hours;! 
regular time, forty minutes. At Westbury the 
Port Jefferson mail is stalled. Between Rock- 
'away Junction and Springfield four trains, 
two from liabylon and two froni . Patchogue, 
took a rest for thirty-six hours. "At Mineola 
the North port and the Locust Vallev way trains 
; still lie. '.Westburg was the sticking place for 
, the Port Jefferson mail, and the Sag Harbor 
i mail stopped at South Oyster Bay. When the 
: last two started, at 7 :05 and 7 :30 Monday morn- 
; ing, it was raining. Three hours later they were 
stopped by the snow. The Greenport mail stuck, 
at Waverlv. At 2 P. M. yesterday all the trains 
, were heard from except the one at Waverly. 
: and that reported an hour later. Communication 
1 was very difficult as all the wires were down 
1 but one to Whitestone and one to Jamaica. 
, Linemen were at work at them all day, but 
could do nothmg in the wind and cold. On the 
Rockaway Beach road, train No. 2, which left] 
the beach at 8 A. M. Monday, was stalled be- 
tween Woodtiaven and Glendale Junction. Shei 
is still there and has no chance of immediate' 
rescue. . , „J .,, 

At 2:15 yesterday engines 55, 85, and 97, with 
a baggage car filled wilh shovellers, started; 
over the North Shore division. It was stalled' 
at Newtown, at 4 o'clock, in a cut a mile long, 
in which the snow is sixteen feet deep. At 12>i 



p. l\r. engines D9, 101, and 102 "started witli a 
snow plough for Jamaica and met a like fate, 
but late last night, when recalled, was able to 
come. 

On Monday four trains came in on the North 
Shore division and two went out. At 2 P. M. 
yesterday a relief train started with all kinds 
of provisions and cooks for a tour of the whole 
system, but was recalled at 8 P. M., as no head- 
way cou.ld be made. It stuck at Jamaica at 
4:10 with engines 48 and 53. 

The ladies on the trains stalled between 
Eockaway Junction and Springfield were taken 
to the neighboring farm houses and cared for, 
Mineola accommodated the forty passengers 
who were stranded near that place. 

At Jamaica 100 passengers, nearly all busi- 
ness men, who started from Patchogue and 
Babylon for New York on Monday morning 
were chafing at the delay. Among them was 
Austin Corbin. At his orders, at 5 P. M., two 
passenger cars and two engines left Liong Island 
City to go to the rescue of the belated business 
men. It got through and arrived at Long 
Island City at.7:60. When the train drew into 
the station a mighty yell arose froni 100 
throats, followed by " Three Cheers for Aus- 
tin Corbin," which were heartily given. As the 
company trooped to the ferry house, singing 
and yelling like Indians, a central figure was 
Mr. Corbin, smiling and serene. He was en- 
Teloped in a big coat trimmed with sealskin, 
and his legs were wrapped in pieces of ingrain 
carpet to the knees. His first auestion was, 
"Are any trains running on the other roads ? 
I tell you. sir, I tried to get in the first train, 
and have worked like a beaver all day. I kept 
away from the boys until I made it pretty cer- 
tain that I could get them through. We will 
be in running order as soon as anybody is." 

He seemed to enjoy the experience of being 
snowed up immensely. The men on Mr. Cor- 
bin's train were very enthusiastic about the 
way in which he had cared for them. The 
larders of the surrounding country were at his 
command opened to the snow-bound men. They 
were la^isJl in praise for Conductor Apgar and 
his crew. Among the business men who slept 
on the train and accepted Mr. Corbin's hos- 
pitality were B. K. True, Schuyler Parsons, 
Gil Conklin, Charles Searles, Commodoi-e Liv- 
ingston, William Smith, N. S. Lawson, Dr. 
Brush, Milton Thompson, and Samuel Thomp- 
son, nearly all from Babylon. 



From the upper end of the Fourth Avenue 
Railroad tunnel up to 150th street, where the 
New York Central leaves the Hai-lem branch, 
taking an abrupt turn through a deep and 
winding cut, the snow has done in a sin- 
gle day what it will take many days to undo. 
The further up the road one goes the deeper 
are the drifts, and the fences finally disappear 
from view altogether. Throughout the whole 
distance from the Grand Central Depot up to 
Mott Haven the up-going track on the eastern 
side of the tunnel and sunken bed is compara- 
tively free from embankments, so that a couple 
of heavy locomotives had littM trouble in 
telearing the way yesterday. But the down 
track is one long drift. The di'ift reaches its 
height in the main channel of the tunnel, the 
openings of which seem to have acted as suc- 
tion tubes. Millions of tons of snow have been 
packed there as solidly as ice in an ice house, 
as if it had been stored away for summer use. 
Near the openings the embankments are ten to 
twelve feet deep, almost touching the arch. 

How hopeless the task is of trying to shovel 
it to one side or to run locomotives through it 
was shown by the efforts made on Monday. 
Yesterday a gang of 200 Italians were taken up 
to the mouth of the tunnel at Eighty-fourth 
street.. Before they had gone very far it was 
evident they could accomplish nothing, having 
noplace near at hand in which to dump the 
snow and nothing in which to cart it away. 
The only feasible way is to carry it off in trains 
as.so much freight. 

A New York Central train stood on the down 
track iit the 116tn street station waiting to be 



pulled out and at 125th street, where tne tracts 
bend around the station, was a Harlem River 
train in a much worse plight than either of the 
other two, for the drifts are deeper at this point 
and there is greater danger of overturning. 

Above the Harlem liiver the road bed, being 
on a level with the surrounding country, both 
tracks were but thinly covered with snow, and 
the force of 400 Italians that was put to work 
cleared the tracks before night. The Harlem 
Eiver train that was snowed under near the 
station of Mott Haven was returned on the 
down track to the junction above and switched 
to the up-bound track ready to go down to the 
yards. 

The junction at 150th street was a sight worth 
seeing. Three of the snow-clad trains were 
lying but a few hundred yards from one an- 
other, two on the Harlem tracks and one on a 
switch track connecting with the New York 
Central at the point where it enters the cut or 
gorge. The entrance to the gorge is stopped up 
by snow ten feet deep. In the recesses of the 
gorge, half hidden in snow banks, are three 
New York Central trains, whose passengers suf- 
fered much privation until the last one was 
carted away at 10 A. M. yesterday at the ex- 
pense of the company. Near Macomb's Dam a 
fourth Central train lingers, and Spuyten Duyvil 
is caring for the passengers of a fifth. Upward 
of a score are scattered along the line to the 
northward. 

The second train that left the junction for 
the depot was a double header, and a third en- 
gine was at the rear end. It was a White 
Plains special of the Harlem River road, and 
got away at 5:12 P. M., arriving at the Grand 
Central Depot at 5:35 o'clock, making 23 min- 
utes. The reporter was one of a score who- 
came down, but the regular passengers h^id all 
been taken off early in the day. The .huge 
drifts in the main tunnel loomed up against 
the openings of the walls, and were plainly 
visible as the train swept through the dark in- 
terior. The passengers had to wade through 
heaps of snow two feet deep in the depot itself 
as they alighted. 



LINEMEN GET AT THEIR BIG JOB. 

The "Western Union Telegraph Company- 
had a force of more than 300 men out yesterday 
bolstering up poles and untangling wires in 
the city. No pretence of sending messages by 
means of city wires was made. All business 
that came, however, was received, subject to 
delay, and then transmitted through the pneu- 
matic tubes of the company and forwarded to 
its destination by messenger. 

The Western Union Company was, indeed, 
very humble in regard to the condition of the 
city wires, and fell back, as it were, without re- 
serve upon compressed air. The United Lines 
had one wire open to the Hoffman House, 

The scene in the main operating rooms was 
similar to that to be witnessed in a school- 
room when the master's back is turned. Most 
of the operators had literally nothing to do 
but telegraph with their eyes to their charm- 
ing colleagues of the opposite sex. Western 
Union was able to talk to Chicago, Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati, and Buffalo in the West, but in the 
East and South all wires were reported down. 
In the North connection was good with Albany, 
Syracuse. Newburgh, Eondout, Hudson, Utica, 
Peekskill, Tarrytown, and stations on the 
West Shore Railroad. 

The telephone wires were all demoralized 
yesterday. The Long Distance Telephone 
Company has been a happy exception all 
through. Local telephone plants were in a 
bad plight yesterday. Thirty men were put at 
work to restore to the perpendicular seventeen 
poles in West Eleventh street which had been 
tilted against the house fronts, breaking win- 
dow glass and smashing shutters, and also de- 
facing brick walls. Nine poles were down at 
Tenth avenue and 140th street, and the same 
tale was oft repeated in Harlem and J\Iott 
Haven. A cable belonging to the Metropolitan 
Telephone Company was jerked out of the bed 



of the T^orth River Dy a steamer whioh anciior- 
ed off Cortlandt street on Monday night. 

The electric ligliting companies say they aro 
m good shape again. 

The police wires were working better yester- 
day; Linemen repaired damages till Police 
Headquartors was in communication with the 
twenty-one stations below Forty-second street. 
This was a gain of fourteen stations over Mon- 
day, but perfect communication Was estab- 
lished only with the stations comprising the 
western division. The entanglement of the 
wires mado.. it difficult to receive long de- 



spatchos. ihe teiepnono wires eonnocting 
the Central Office with the ' 'harles, Mercer, and 
\\ est Thirtieth street stations were in order, 
ami that mode of communication was most 

The police wires above Forty-second street 
are still in bad shape, and the fourteen sta- 
tions beginning at West Forty-seventh street 
and ending at Kingsbridgo are obliged to do 
their business with the Central Office by mos- 
sengers. >iot a_ few policemen came to Police- 
Headquarters with despatches yesterday. 



IsTe^Y Tork Itself Again. 



From the gray and dubious dawn to the 
golden and glorious sunset things were mov- 
ing in New York yesterday. Some things were 
moving yet earlier and latert. They were shov- 
els. These useful implements were the most 
restlessly active articles in all the restlessness 
of a town th.at is tired of resting. They were 
worked by thousands of Italians in squads 
that had enlisted under the banners of Com- 
missioner Coleman or of the street railroad 
folks who were mining for the buried iron of 
their tracks through depths of snow packed to 
the solid consistency of ice. These squads were 
working with the help of pickaxe wielders, 
and were reenforced and supported in many 
instances by a force of carts to remove the dis- 
integi-ated mass. In other places the pick and 
shovel brigades built high and solid ramparts 
alongside the tracks of the mottled and mar- 
bled blocks they raised from the pavement, or 
cut chalk white channels through drifts and 
piled them to greater heights on either side. 

The number and size of these gangs of 
shovellers suggested the thought that the 
city was becoming Latinized to an extent un- 
dreamed of. But a study of them would not 
bear out this conclusion. Among them were 
well-dressed and comfortable looking men, 
kid-gloved day laborers as it were. The stag- 
nation of business in the ordinary channels is 
the probable explanation of this. Another 
vast, though scattered army of shovel bran- 
dishers were those who in pursuit of contract 
work, scorned the $1.50 and $2 a day toil of the 
gang laborers, and wanted $.5 for digging out a 
west side or north side house front. Yet a trip 
up the Bowery disclosed the usual number of 
loungers about the cheap lodging houses. 
These are the chronic seekers after work, so 
thoroughly used to looking for it that they 
have no time to do it when they find it. 

Still other hundreds of tho ever-moving 
shovels were agitated by children and women. 
The former made up by activity for lack of 
strength, hut the latter made a mess of it in 
their attacks on the huge snow piles. Their 
training and their weapons were against 
them. There were a gi-eat many of them to be 
seen, up town, down to^vn, and all over town, 
but their little fire shovels and the kitchen 
pokers for picks were not very effectual. An- 
other trouble was their difl'erest notion of 
work. A man wouM attack a drift with the 
simple purpose of dislodging it. ' No matter 
though snow remained under his foot, if the big 
pile was over the gutter instead of on the side- 
walk, he was content. But a woman though 
cleaning a spot only big enough to serve as a 



resting place for her dainty feet, must have 
that spot broom clean and dry, or feel as 
though she had suffered defeat. 

BONFIEES TO HELP THE THAW. 

The third day of the great blockade begar^ 
with discouraging symptoms of another snow 
fall, and until 2 o'clock in the afternoon ther» 
was a straggling deposit of big. wet flakes that 
suggested the last, and by no means the least 
distressing stage— tho thaw. It thawed just 
enough to help things on a little. The great- 
drifts in the streets are bad enough, but noth- 
ing could be worse than a sudden transforma- 
tion of the snow to slush and water. Koads 
full of snow may be rendered passable by pa- 
tient work, but against slush, feet deep, ther& 
is no remedy. The threatening rain did not 
come, though, and at 3 o'clock the sun peered 
through the clouds as if to tell the Signal 
Service Department that th(3 elements would 
do what they could to justify its prediction of 
' fair and slightly warmer weather." 
An original genius on Vesey street conceived 
the plan of building a lire on the big drifts be- 
fore his store, and all over the lower part of 
the city his example was quickly followed. The 
air was full of brown smoke and the appetiz- 
ing odor of bonfires. The method was unique 
and interesting. A hole was excavated in the 
drift of about the capacity of a cubic yard 
From the top of this to the top of the drift a 
funnel was made to secure ventilation. Then 
trenches were dug at the sides of the drift to 
conduct the water to the gutters. The hole 
was filled with barrels of shavings and paper 
and empty packing boxes and fired. The fuel 
Durned right merrily, and the interior of the 
drifts were speedily toasted— at least they 
looked toasted, for the cinders and smoke dis- 
colored the snow to a dark brown, and as time 
passed the drifts gradually melted away. This 
artificial thaw caused no serious discomfort 
to pedestrians, and it greatly facilitated the 
reception and delivery of goods at the many 
stores where it was employed. 

CLEARING THE WATS, 

The things that were moving besides the 
shovels did not include many of the street 
cars. A few of them ran, and the cleared 
streets which rendered that possible also 
furnished opportunities for the movement of 
the fire apparatus. To those who are familiar 
with the situation, and appreciate the good 
luck the city has had in the matter of flres, the 
engines will outrank the horse cars in conse- 
quence as possible travellers in tho cleared 
streets. From the celerity of sliding poles, 
lightning hitching up. and dead gallops to the 
scene of a Are to the slow floundering and 
shovel-assisted progress of Monday night and 
Tuesday is a wide difference that is all in the 
fire fiend's favor. 

The awakened life of the city was very com- 
posite in character. Business was a thing of 
shreds and patches. Mails and telegraphic 
communication were still under the embargo 
that tho city was so vigorously shaking oft'. 
The thousands of would-be business men who 
thronged the down-town streets were fully 
aware of this, and of the enforced leisure it im- 
plied. No mails or telegrams means no orders, 
and orders if filled could certainly not be 
shipped. Wheeled vehicles and sleighs had 
almost equal difllculty in getting along outside 
of the shovel-smoothed streets, and hauline 



-was still a matter that could be aecomplishea 
only under the pressure of stern necessity. 
The moving of coal and provisions was about 
the only thing that supplied this pressure. 
Coal, meat, beer, and other necessaries were 
variously toted on wheels and runners, and 
teams three-horse, four-horse; -and tandem 
were necessary to move either style of vehicle 
when loaded. The development of variety in 
sleds and sledges was almost endless. An old- 
fashioned stoneboat was loaded with coal in 
bags, with the driver teetering on top of them. 
A small boy with a dry goods box on runners 
of barrel staves also drew coal with the aid of 
a Newfoundland dog. 

The coal men, who had to stick to their lum- 
bering two- wheeled tip carts, were very keen 
in discovering the best cleaned streets and ave- 
nues. They drove tandem and sometimes 
with three horses in a string, the man on the 
load holding the rains and going through the 
motions of driving, though a postillion strad- 
dled the broMd back of the lending horse. The 
carts were ireinieni'iv wnviaid by restaurant 
Keepers and others, who sallied out to bid high 
for the coal for their ranges. 

BOSTON PEOPLE GET HOME. 

Up to last night few people who were detained 
in town by the railroad blockade had left the 
hotels, which were still crowded away beyond 
their normal capacity. Those who wanted to go 
west or north had no means of getting out of 
town, and would-be passengers for Boston 
thought themselves similarly shut in. But the 
Stonington of the Stonington line arrived 
during the forenoon, and at 2 o'clock in the 
afternoon the Bristol of the Fall River line 
came in. She had started from Fall River at 1 
o'clock in the morning, and the passage, there- 
fore, had taken only three or four hours longer 
than usual. The officers of the Bristol report- 
ed that on the eastern end of the Sound and in 
Narragansett Bay there was nothing worse 
than a severe rain storm when they passed, 
and that the wind was abating. Up to this time 
there had been no intention of sending a boat 
to Boston, but the Providence of the Fall River 
line was at once put in order and the announce- 
mettt made that she would start at 5 o'clock. 
There was not time for this news to be widely 
disseminated, but enough people heard of it to 
crowd the boat. Boats of the other eastern 
lines also left on schedule time, with full lists 
of passengers. 

The roadways of the Brooklyn Bridge were 
in bad condition, for little effort had been made 
to clear away the snow. Teaming up the long 
arch was, therefore, exceedingly difficult, but 
there was a good deal of traffic nevertheless. 

"Something happened here to-day that I 
never saw before," said the collector at the 
New York end. " Two different funerals went 
over, and everv carriage in the procession was 
a sleigh. The hearse was the only thing on 
wheels." 

MAILS STAET UP. 

After noonday yesterday the prospect of get- 
ting the accumulated mail out of the Post Of- 
fice brightened. The mail for the South and 
West, consisting of 157 pouches and 249 sacks, 
that had been despatched by the Pennsylvania 
road, had gone on swimmingly so far as known. 
A Bound Brook way mail of the Central Rail- 
road of New Jersey arrived before noon. The 
New York and way mail over the Northern 
Railroad of New Jersey, the Newark mails of 
Tuesday and yesterday by the Pennsylvania, 
and the stalled Orange and Newark mails by 
the D., L. and W., and theSMorristown and way 
mail by the same road all arrived during the 
early afternoon. The Staten Island mails due 
at 8:42 A. M. on Monday, arrived yesterday at 
12:15 P. M. The Easton, Pa., mail, by way of 
the Central Railroad of New Jersey, arrived at 
noon, 48 hours and 25 minutes laie. 

The surprise of the day was the arrival at 
11:40 A. M. of the New York Central's mail 
pouches carrying the Cleveland, Ohio, Roches- 
ter, Buffalo, Rutland, and St. Albans, Vermont, 
and Albany mails due on Monday morning. 

In 'the afternoon the Bridgeport and New 
Haven steamboats brought the Connecticut 
mails, and the Fall River line steamer Bristol 
arrived, carrying 79 pouches of ordinary and 11 
pouches of registered mail from New Enjrland 



or the 12th ana 13th Inst. The Fall Biver, Provi- 
dence, Stonington, Bridgeport, and New Haven 
Steamboat Companies sent Postmaster Pearson 
offers to carry any mails he might desire to put 
in their charge. He accepted all the tenders, 
and despatched three pouches ©n the V^teamer 
Elm City for New Haven, one pouch for Bridge- 
port by the Rosedale, and about 150 pouches of 
Eastern mail by the Boston Sound steamer, 
which left the city at 5 o'clock P. M. A big 
batch of mail was despatched to the Grand 
Central Depot for non-competitive points to 
await the first movement of trains. 

THE TELEGRAPH PICKING UP SLOWLY. 

The Western Union had direct communica- 
tion yesterday between New York and these 
points: Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Al- 
bany, local stations to Newburgh and Pough- 
keepsie, Detroit, Buffalo, and several interior 
cities of this State along the line of the West 
Shore Railroad. Erie lines are serviceable to 
Passaic, and the Pennsylvania to Newark. 
Much more business is transacted than is rep- 
resented by these stray points. Messages for 
Pliiladelphia are sent to Chicago or Cincinnati 
or Pittsburgh, and thence repeated to the 
desired point. Washington is reached 
via Chicago. Two wires capable of do- 
ing a very small business are open 
to Boston via Albany and Worcester. By the 
same route to North Sidney, N. S., the Anglo- 
American cable is reached. Nearly all of south- 
ern New England and northern New Y'^ork is 
is shut off from telegraphic communication 
with this city. Many points in the Southern 
States are reached by repeating from Pitts- 
burgh and Cincinnati. Up to last evening more 
than 1,50U Western Union poles had been re- 
ported down. The receiving offices are not 
overcrowded with business because the situa- 
tion is explained to all who submit messages, 
and as a rule patrons withdraw their orders; 
for even when points can be reached by repeat- 
ing in a roundabout way. there is a great deal 
of loss in time, and the company cannot guaran- 
tee promptness or accuracy. 

WE'EE out of THE WOODS. 

Street cries that the blizzard had stilled were 
again heard. The " glass pudding" and " rags 
and bottles" men were a not unwelcome evi- 
dence of the city's return to life. A cry that 
seemed strangely out of season was heard in 
Second avenue, near Fourteenth street. It 
startled the good people about 11 o'clock. It 
was " Strawberries, strawberries." Two men 
were carrying a crate between them, in which 
were two score of pint boxes full of the red 
berries. They were sold at 35 cents a box, but 
had few buyers, as the fruit looked shrivelled 
and frozen. 

The summing up for the day results in com- 
fortable conclusions. The giving out of the 
milk supply is the principal blot upon this sat- 
isfactory condition. And as that is beyond 
local causes and control the evil musl; be en- 
dured. The extortions by small dealers in coal 
and yirovisions are the chief local difficulties 
that remain. We're out of the woods. 



DAKOTA JOKES US. 



Messages to Mayor Hewitt Offerins Clothes 
and Food and Money, 

It is suspected that a facetious intent lurks 

in these despatches received by Mayor Hewitt 

yesterday : 

Bismarck, Dakota, Mareh 14. 
Mayor Hewitt, N. T. : 

Subscription papers reported passed throughout Da- 
kota for aid of storm sufferers in New York and sur- 
rounding country. Citizens of the Territory express 
deen sympathy for your people, and are responding lib- 
erally. Would you prefer clothes or food, or both ? 

J. JI. QuiN-x, Bismarck Tribune. 
HuKON, Dakota, March 14. 
Mayor Hewitt. N. Y. : 

Huron, Dakota, under a mild spring, now sends her 
sympathy to blizzaru-stricken New York. It needed, 
you may draw on us for $oL> to relieve the siorm suf- 
ferers. J. H. Kent, Chairman. 

A despatch signed " Chamber Commerce, Bis- 
marck, Dak.," read: 



Bismarck stands ready to give substantial aid to bliz- 
zard sufferers of New York. Let us know your needs. 

M. H. Jewell. 

"Many Citizens" sent a despatch from St. 
Paul, Minn., which said: 

The city of St. Paul tenders to New York her sympathy 
for the damage to life and property occasioned hy the 
blizzard now raging in your city. Unaccustomed to 
Btorms of such severity as to cause railroad and tele- 
frapliic isolation from the outside world, and never hav- 
inv had people frozen to death in the streets, we shall be 
glad to contribute to any relief fund which may be 
started for your atHicted people. Weather here yester- 
day and to-day mild and beautiful. 

Mayor Hewitt had no time to be funny in re- 
ply. *He answered in courteous matter of fact 
Dhraise to the effect that Naw York was much 
obliged, but that no help was needed. 

News of another pilot boat disaster was 
brought in from the ocean by the British 
steamer Japanese yesterday afternoon. This 
one may prove the worst of all, and the saddest 
of the ten resulting from the terrible gale, for 
it is reported that half the crew of ten are lost 
with their boat. 

At midnight on Monday, the Captain of the 
Japanese reports, when his vessel under a full 
head of steam was barely able to make any 
headway in the northwest hurricane, she was 
run into by the pilot boat W. H. Starbuck, No. 6. 
No lights could be seen by the lookout on the 
steamer, even if they had been shown, in the 
blinding storm. The pilot boat struck the 
steamer bow-on at a point just abaft the 
port forerigging. Her bowsprit and fore- 
mast went by the board, and as she 
swung alongside on top of a sea. Pilots 
Oscar) Stauffreiden and Fred Eyerson, with 
three of the crew, comprising the watch on 
deck, sprang into the steamer's main rigging 
and saved themselves. The watch below were 
Pilot Heath, Boatkeeper Douglass, and three 
men. So quickly did the coUision occur that 
by the time the steamer was slowed down the 
disabled boat had dropped astern into the^ 
howling gale and out of sight. All efforts to 
And her proved fruitless, and pilots here fear.' 
she could not have outlived the fearful weather 
in her crippled condition. 

The Japanese was about twenty-five miles S. 
E. of Barnegat at the time of the collision. 
" The wind being N. W.," said a pilot last night, 
"if she was steering her course, about N. by E. 
>4 E. for Sandy Hook Lightship, would be 5>4 
points on her port bow, and the Starbuck must 
have been running dead before the gale steer- 
ing about S. E. to strike her as she did, for if 
hove to on either tack she would not head so 
as to strike a vessel steering as the steamer 
was. I'm afraid there's but little chance for 
the boys aboard No. 6." 

Henry and .J. Dovere, father and son, and 
both Sandy Hook pilots, own the W. H. Star- 
buck. She was built for them, and launched 
at Tottenville, Staten Island, only eighteen 
months ago to take the place of the old Mary 
arid Catherine, No. 6, which was run down, cut 
almost in half, and sunk by a tramp steamer in 
the night within a few miles of the spot where 
her successor ha.s probably gone to the bottom. 
Jim Devere and five other men escaped in the 
yawl at that time. They were at sea. clad only 
in their underclothing, for six hours before 
being picked up. Dovere tlid not go in the boat 
the last time she sailed. The Starbuck was a 
handsome schooner and one of the ablest sea 
boats in the Now York fleot. 

Four more pilot boats which were out in the 
blizzard were heard from yesterday, two of 
which are known to have escaped the furv of 
the storm uninjured, and a third is probably 
in some harbor. I'ilot boat 19, the Mary Wil- 
liams, Capt. Henry iJurnett, was in the lower 



bay near Staten island on Sunday nigns. 
when the gale came on. It M'as not until 
morning that she could get into Prince's Bay. 
She got there without accident. 

Pilot boat 16, the J. F. Loubat, also in the 
lower bay, was further from the shore, but she 
weathered the gale at anchor, and she was de- 
tailed as a station boat yesterday to tak» 
pilots from westward-bound vessels. 

Pilot Charles Hughes, who arrived on the 
Queen yesterday, was taken on from pilot boat 
8 off Nantucket at 4 P. M., Sunday, before the 
storm began. He was the last pilot in the boat, 
and he told a reporter of The Sun yesterday 
that he had no fears for the safety of the crew, 
as they pointed for land on the same day. He 
saw pilot boat 21, the America, yesterday 
morning, twenty miles S. E. of the Highlands, 
and she was all right. 

The tug Grant, which put to sea early Mon- 
day morning, followed the New Jersey coast 
line down as far as Seabright, but all thati 
Capt. Davis could see was the wreck here and 
there of a small schooner. He turned his 
glasses in every direction, but he sighted no 
pilot boats. Returning, he anchored off Staten 
Island on Tuesday night, and came back to the 
city yesterday to lay in supplies for an extend- 
ed cruise. 

The lower bay is studded with small schoon- 
ers, partly disabled. One of the pilot boats that 
went ashore at the foot of Sixty-seventh street. 
South Brooklyn, on Tuesday, was pulled 
off by a tug yesterday, and towed to 
a safe anchorage off Staten Island. The 
boat is supposed to be the Ezra Nye. 
The Driggs and Harrison are yet ashore; 
in the ice, and will probably prove total losses.' 
Their crews were fed and kindly eared for at 
John Speck's house, near the above. The bed- 
ding was taken from the pilot boats, over the 
ice on sleds, by the crews. 

The schooner Mary Heitman broke adrift ia 
the storm on Monday morning, and, dragging 
her two anchors, went down through the Nar- 
rows like a steamboat. The crew were unable 
to do anything with her, the rigging and sails 
being covered with ice. In drifting through 
the Narrows she passed the pilot boat Loubat' 
with three anchors out, but could get no assist- 
ance from her as she was in trouble herself. 

In the lower bay, near Sandy Hook, the Heit- 
man collided with the three-masted schooner 
George W. Lochuer, bound out, but anchored, 
to ride out the gale. When the vessels struck 
Seaman James Hennessy jumped on board the 
Lochner. He says his shipmates tried to fol- 
low his example, but before they could get a 
foothold the vessels parted, and the Heitman 
went rapidly out to sea. Hennessy says he has 
little hopes of his companions being rescued. 
The crew are: Mate, P. Mullany; seamen," 
James Hennessy, Dan Carroll, John Stewart, 
and a man named Ryan. The Captain was 
ashore. 

The bark E. L. Pettengill, bound for Valpa- 
raiso, while anchored in the stream off Bed- 
low's Island, at 3 P. M. Tuesday, was fouled by 
the schooner Clara E. Simpson, which dragged 
her anchors and drifted down on the bark, 
carrying away jibboom and head geai\ The; 
schooner had her stern, bulwarks, and rail 
stove and was badly chafed. She was later: 
towed to Jersey City, and the bart to Pier 11, 
East River. 

The schooner Lester A. Lewis dragged her; 
anchors and went ashore on Staten Island, i 
near Fort Wadsworth. She was rescued by' 
two tugs. 

WE HAD AX OTHER ONCE. 



Monday's Storm "Wasn't the First of Its 
Kind— There was One "When "The Sun" 
was Younffer. 

I'nmi The Son. Feb. 5, 1845. 

Great Snow ^■xob.^i.— Detention of the 
J/aiZs.— The first great snow storm of the sea- 
,son set in yesterday morning about sunrise, 
with a strong gale from the East. The snow 
jcontinued to fall without intermission for ten 
•hours, blocking up all the Railroads in the 
!vicinity, detaining outward-bound vessels and 
rendering it almost impossible for inward- 
bound vessels to pass Sandy Hook. Manic of 



rthe harrow streets were renaerea impassaWe 
by large snow drifts, and vehicles on wheels 

fave place to those on runners. Muffled 
edestrians hurried to and fro, evidently in- 
tent on reaching shelter with all possible 
rapidity, and very few ventured out who could 
remain indoors. We fear that the shipping on 
the coast has suffered severely. 

The Eailroads all stopped, it being impossible 
for the trains to make any progress against the 
snow drifts forming on the roads. As rapidly 
as one drift was removed by the snow plows, 
the wind blew another in its place. 

The Mails from Philadelphia, due at 3 o'clock 
yesterday afternoon, had not arrived at tho 
hour of going to press. Sullivan & Co.'s Private 
Express came through from Philadelphia a 

grincipal part of the route on sleighs, arriving 
ere at 8 o'clock last evening. We are indebted 
to them for Philadelphia papers of yesterday. 

Accidents. — A part of the row of four-story 
buildings in progress of erection on Twenty- 
sixth street were blown down yesterday after- 
noon. Loss, $800. A number of signs were 
blown, down during the day and evening. 

The Snipping at the end of the piers in the 
East Piiver suffered considerably by abrasion 
against the piers, &c. A small vessel is report- 
ed ashore at Staten Island. 

From The Suk, Feb. 6, 1845. 
THE GEEAT SNOW STOKM. 

In the Oity.—'We have not had for many years 
in this City a storm so furious in every respect 
as the one which commenced about 6 o'clock 
on Tuesday morning [Feb. 4]. The night pre- 
vious had been cloudy, though not cold ; the 
wind was veering round to the East, and the 
flakes came down in good earnest until about 
4 o'clock, when the stoi-m raged witli great vio- 
lence from that hour until 10 at night, when it 
lulled, the snow being on a level full twenty 
inches deep, and the drifts in some streets were 
three and four feet. Toward night, when mer- 
chants, traders, mechanics, and sewing girls 
were returning home from business, they were 
embarrassed to And themselves without con- 
veyances; the omnibuses had been using 
wheels during the day, and their horses were 
60 worn out that they could not come down. A 
very few omnibus sleighs were to be seen, and 
most of the passengers had to walk home in 
the gale of snow and hail. The few omnibus 
sleighs that were out were crammed inside and 
•out with passengers. 

All the Theatres were either closed or had 
^3ut slender audiences, all the parties and 
soirees were given up, the lamps on the street 
went out. The only ball actually held was at 
Tammany Hall [now The Sun building], un- 
terrified, as it were, by the storm. The milk- 
men were unusually late yesterday morning, 
having had great difficulty in crossing the rivers. 

The accide7it in Twenty-sixth street, to which 
Tve alluded yesterday, is more disastrous than 
at first supposed. The number of houses par- 
tially blown down is about twenty-three. Com- 
modore De Kay is the owner. The houses had 
only their fronts and two sides up, the rear 
wall not having yet been commenced, which 
caused the disaster. The wind had full sweep 
upon the front and side walls as upon the sails 
of a ship. The workmen, very fortunately, had 
left the buildings at dinner time, and had not 
returned, finding it too cold to work. The 
builders. Messrs. Koselle and Stephens, with 
an energy for which they deserve great credit, 
set from fifty to a hundred men to work yester- 
■day morning, despite the inclemency of the 
weather, clearing away the ruins and getting 
ready to rebuild. 

Condition of the Streets.— The first duty is to 
level the snow in the centre of the streets and 
clear the sidewalks. Street inspectors must do 
their duty and enforce the ordinance for clear- 
ing the sidewalks, or they will be impassable. 
Passengers must look out for the avalanche of 
snow from the roofs of houses. The wind yes- 
terday afternoon veered round to the West, 
and if it getsa little South the snow will melt 
rapidly and we shall have an overflow in the 
cellars. All these difficulties may be removed 
by timely exertion and a little extra enterprise. 
Now is the time for the Corpoi-ation to make a 
little capital and show what can be done in 
time of need. 

Vessels Ashore.— Ihe pilot boat Commerce 
went ashore on Staten Island during .the thick- 



est of th« storm on Tuesday, about il o'clock, 
having .lust come up from Sandy Hook. She 
ran on between the Elm Tree and the Narrows, 
9.nd was tight at last advices. A brig, name 
not known, lies dismasted near the South West 
epit. 

The Mails.— "No mails arrived during Tuesday 
excepting the Boston Evening Mail, whicla was 
due in the morning, and came in before noon. 

On the Goast.—'We have great apprehension 
that it blew a hurricane. The iPilots report 
that they saw the Princeton, with a full head 
of steam, clawing off the shore. It is reported 
that two ships are ashore on the Jersey side- 
one said to be from China and the other from 
Liverpool. 

The Staten Island Ferry boats could not ply. 

Sandy Hook. — Several vessels are outside the 
Hook, among them the Sheffield from Hull. 

New Jersey and PhiL Railroad. — Passen- 
gers detained. — The 5 o'clock P. M. Passenger 
Philadelphia trains on the New Jersey Trans- 

Eortation Company's Eoad left at the usual 
our day before yesterday from Jersey City, but 
after proceeding about two miles were firmly 
blocked up and arrested in the deep cut at Ber- 
gen Hill and unable to return or proceed. The 
passengers were compelled to pass the night in 
the cars. Provisions were sent from Jersey 
City. There was a good supply of fuel on board 
and they managed to keep comfortable during 
the night. The passengers numbered about 
one hundred, including ten ladies. A very few 
walked back to Jersey City. An army of men 
commenced operations on the road early yes- 
terday morning. At noon yesterday a sleigh 
express came into Jersey City from Newark, 
bringing accounts of the disastrous fire there, 
but no tidings of the missing trains and mails 
from Philadelphia. 

Tlte Long Island Railroad is exposed to 
greater interruptions from N. E. snow storms 
than any other, the track running in a direction 
to collect the greatest quantities of snow. The 
whole road for miles together is said to be a 
succession of vast snow banks, some ten or fif- 
teen feet deep. It will not be cleared for sev- 
eral days. In the mean time the mails from 
Boston are behind. We have not a word from 
the passengers that left here on Tuesday 
morning for Boston, nor from those who start- 
ed to come hither on that day. 

The New Haven Boats managed to come in in 
the worst of the storm on Tuesday, and ar- 
rived again yesterday in good season. 

The Albany Boats, via Bridgeport, did not 
venture out yesterday morning. We have no 
mail from Albany since that of Monday after- 
noon, received via New Haven. The Housa- 
tonic Railroad is probably as badly obstructed 
as all the others. 

The Boston Boats, detained here on Tuesday, 
left yesterday afternoon at four o'clock. 

The Harlem Railroad is impassable, and 
sleighs have taken the place of Rail Cars on 
the entire route of the road. 

From The Sun. Feb. 7, 1845. 

Sleighing.— The jocund tinkling of the sleigh 
bells is heard in every direction. Broadway 
and the Bowery are alive with them, the air is 
clear, cold, and bracing: the ladles, without 
ceremony or fashion, jump into the comforta- 
ble omnibus sleighs and take sixpence worth 
of delightful sleighing— ride down to the South 
Ferry and up Broadway to Union Place, or ia 
Kipp and Brown's magnificent vehicles, drawn 
by six noble white horses up the Eighth Ave- 
nue to Twenty-sixth street, where they land, 
and have a comfortable parlour to sit in, and a 
glass of mulled Port wine negus, to those who 
are cold and have not taken the pledge. We 
have never seen the ladies so independent — 
wrapped up in hoods, boas, cloaks, and muffs ; 
their feet protected, they spring into the sleighs 
without the presence of gentlemen; have their 
own purses and pay their own way. Some ride 
down to the Museum, jump into the Dry Dock 
stages, and ride over to the East River, and 
back again to the South Ferry, so that for two 
shillings they kill a couple of hours delight- 
fully, and "make hay while the Sun shines." 
Others take the Bowery, Harlem, Yorkville, or 
Manhattan ^leighs. Hundreds pass up and 
down in the Bowery and Dry Dock lines* The 
English Cocknies are all out on the Third av- 
enue, staring at the fast trotters, and declaring 
that they have never witnessed such speed in 
the old couutrv. For a few dava at least it will 



■ )o gay ana agreeauie throughout the city. 

Cleau the Snow.— No\v is the harvest for 
the Corporation Attorney. If he will only en- 
force the ordinance, keeping the snow irom 
the pavements, he will deservedly earn all his 
fees. An army of sweepers is required. Mean- 
while his honor, the Mayor, in a proclamation 
urges citizens to level the snow in front of tlieir 
houses, that the engines may pass in case or 
flre. 

Ay OLD-TIME SNOW STORM. 



[Sr. Cotton Mather's Account of a Blizzard 
that Occnrred In J'ebruary, 171'?. 

"On the 24:th day of the month comes 
Polion upon Ossa: another Snow came on 
which almost buried the Memory of the former, 
with a Storm so famous that Heaven laid an 
Interdict on the Religious Assemblies through- 
out the Country, on this Lord's day, the like 
.whereunto had never been seen before. The 
llndians near an hundred years old aflirm that 
itheir Fathers never told them of anything that 
iequalled it. ^ast numbers of Cattel were de- 
iStroyed in this Calamity. Whereof some there 
'were, of the Stranger sort, were found standing 
Idead on their legs, as if they had been 
alive, many weeks after, when the snow 
melted away. And otliers had their 
eyes glazed over with Ice at such 
a rate that, being not far from the Sea, their 
mistake of their way drowned them there. One 
gentleman, on whose farms were now lost 
above 1,100 sheep, which with other Cattel were 
interred (shall I say, or Innived) in the Snow, 
writes me word that there were two Sheep very 
(Singularly circumstanced. For no less than 
eight and twenty days after the Storm, the Peo- 
iple pulling out the Kuins of above an 100 Sheep 
out of a Snow Bank, which lay Ig foot high, 



' drifted over them, there was two round alive, 
which had been there all this time, and kept 
themselves alive by eating the wool of their 

' dead companions. When they were taken out 
they shed their own Fleeces, but soon gott into 
good Case again. 

'-' The Swine had a share with the Sheep in 
strange survivals. A man had a couple of 

' young Hoggs, whicli he gave over for dead, but 
on the 27th day after their Burial they made 
their way out of a Snow Bank, at the bottom of 
which they had found a little Tansy to feed 
upon. The Poultry as unaccountably survived 
as these. Hens were found alive after seven 
days. Turkeys were found alive after five and 
twenty days, buried in the Snow, and at a dis- 
tance from the ground, and altogether desti- 
tute of anything to feed them. The number of 
creatures that kept :a Kigid Fast, shutt up in 
Snow for divers weeks together, and were 
found alive after all, have yielded surprizing 
stories unto us. The Wild Creatures of the 
Woods, the outgoings of the Evening made 

! their Descent as well as they could in tliis time 

' of scarcity for them, towards the Sea side. A 
vast multitude of Deer for the same cause 

(taking the same course, and the Deep Snow 
Spoiling them of their only Defence, which is 
to run, the became such a prey to these De- 
vourers, that it is thought not one in twenty es- 

' caped. 

■■ It is incredible how much damage is done to 
the Orchards, for the Snow freezing to a Crust 
as high as the boughs of the trees, anon split 
them to pieces. The CatteJ, also, walking on 
the Crusted Snow a dozen foot from the ground, 

: so fed upon the Trees as very much to damnify 
them. The Ocean was in a prodigious Fer- 
ment, and after it was over, vast heaps of little 
shells were driven ashore, where they were 
never seen before. Mighty shoals of Porpoises 
also kept a play day in the disturbed waves of 
our Harbours. 

" The odd Accidents befalling many poor 
people whose Cottages were totally covered 
with the Snow, and not the very tops of the 
chimneys to be seen, would afford a Story. But 
their not being any relation to philosophy ia 
them, I forbear them." 



As this book goes to press, only six days after the blizzard first swooped 
down on New York, the snow is still piled high on the streets and the storm 
is the Tiost absorbing topic of conversation. But the Metropolis is no longer 
cut off from communication with the outside world, the railroad trains are 
running on schedule time, the telegraphic facilities are nearly as good as 
they ever were, and there is no longer any fear of a partial famine. To be 
sure, the price of fuel and provisions is still higher than usual and rubber 
boots are still in demand, but the worst is over, Spring is at hand, and in 
a comparatively short time the bare memorj' of the blizzard will be all that 
xemains. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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